My issue of primary concern is funding for public school education in Texas.

My name is Steve Riddell.

And I’ve lived in Texas for almost all my adult life – 25 years now. I’ve lived in Bedford for ten years. I’ve only participated in politics as an eager observer until recently, when the antics from the 85th Legislature convinced me that I could no longer sit idly by.

My background is in business. I work for a large Internet company in Dallas, managing their global website payment processing and credit card fraud prevention strategies. It’s work that I love – I’ve been doing similar jobs for almost twenty years now, in addition to a lot of experience in financial analysis and treasury management – heady stuff! I had the great privilege of starting out the professional phase of my business career at Apple, right around the time that the company had the revolutionary idea of, “Hey, maybe we should start selling these colorful computers on the Internet?” I learned a lot from that experience about diving into the chaos and creating something brand new.... Read on to learn more about me.

What I Believe

We in the Mid-Cities have the right to representation in Austin that reflects our values. Here are mine:

education

I believe the future of our communities depends on well-educated kids, and public school funding should be our number one budget priority. We cannot cut our way to success. Lawmakers in Austin are far more concerned with which bathroom our kids use at school than they are with the quality of the education our kids receive in every other room...

NATURAL RESOURCES

Oil and gas have served Texas well throughout her history, and our economy still depends on fossil fuels to a great degree, but no one believes that fossil fuels are the fuels of our future.  Texas should be discovering ways to economically leverage the fuels of the future by investing in renewable energy sources like wind power, solar power, geothermal and biomass...

IMMIGRATION

Speaking in terms of economics alone, undocumented immigrants would not be coming to supply their labor if Texan employers were not demanding it, and yet no politician has ever proposed targeting the cause of undocumented workers - jobs to be had - and only propose targeting the effect - the workers themselves.  Even the most conservative of economists will...

Texas House District 92