Democrat Jon Mark Hogg Offers a Choice in Race for Congress

SAN ANGELO, TX — Jon Mark Hogg is running for the U.S. House as a Democrat to represent Congressional District 11. He hasn’t received any press here primarily because he hasn’t made himself available. But he does grant interviews to Austin news outlets, such as KVUE, the ABC TV station there.

In the Austin media interview, Hogg jabbed at his opponent, Republican August Pfluger, and suggested Pfluger doesn’t know CD-11 because he hasn’t lived here. Pfluger, after a long active duty career in the U.S. Air Force, transferred to the Reserves in order to run for the CD-11 congressional seat after the incumbent, K. Michael Conaway, announced he was not seeking another term.

“Look I applaud his service but I’ve been here for 28 years. My opponent has not been here. He came back to run for this seat from Washington,” Hogg said. Hogg claimed more experience working for Pfluger’s bread and butter issues like representing oil and gas, agriculture and green energy interests as an attorney.

Ironically, before Pfluger went to the U.S. Air Force Academy, Hogg said he lived next door to his family.

Hogg’s two top priorities should he win are insuring affordable health care for all and to deny the storage of highly radioactive waste within CD-11.

A plan was reviewed by the federal government and a 500-page draft report was published a week ago that was considered a significant milestone on the nuke storage project’s road to approval, according to journalist Travis Bubenik at the Courthouse News Service.

The proposal would allow a company called Interim Storage partners to transport about half the high level radioactive waste in the country, from about 100 nuclear power plants, and store the waste underground at the Waste Control Specialists location near Andrews. The proposal is to accommodate 4,000 metric tons of nuclear waste initially. The authorization could be increased to 40,000 metric tons.

Hogg said he was firmly against such a project and if elected would fight to not allow storing highly radiative waste within CD-11. He claimed both Conaway and Pfluger approve of the plan.

Hogg said health care affordability is actually an availability issue in rural Texas. Over the past 10 years, 26 rural hospitals have closed, he said. He did not specify specific policy proposals to address affordability or health care access in rural communities.

Hogg said he was motivated to run for congress because of how coarse politics have become over the past decade.

“Well, it was a lot of things but primarily because of the type of … the tone and the tenor of politics and the ugliness that has gone on, not just during the last three and a half years, but even longer than that. I just sensed that there was a voice out there for people that were, you know – what I heard was frustration. And I also felt that our area had not received adequate representation for quite a long time. I thought that the representation that we were getting was focused primarily on addressing and talking about national political issues and not the issues that really matter to the people in District 11, such as affordable health care, the crisis of closures of hospitals, the rural health care crisis, education, jobs, those sorts of things, the kitchen table issues. And I also wanted to just bring, I think, a sense of restoring some focus to be on the common people, the common folk, and just try to help bring back some sense of common sense and common decency into government.” he said

He said he is hopeful his campaign will defeat Pfluger who is running in a district that voted overwhelmingly for President Donald Trump in 2016. CD-11 starts in the Permian Basin to the West and expands towards Granbury and Llano to the East. There are 29 Texas counties in the district.

“There are more Democrats out here than people realize. Our district has not had choices and that leads to everyone having to vote in Republican primaries for local races like county sheriff,” he said. “This is 2020 and not like any other year. We are going to see a lot of interesting things happen this year.”

Hogg was born in Tyler but his parents were missionaries. Growing up, he lived in Trinidad and Tobago but graduated from high school in El Paso. From there, he attended St. Mary’s School of Law in San Antonio and married into a San Angelo family. He has lived in San Angelo and practiced law here for 28 years. His wife is the librarian at San Angelo Central High School.

Hogg previously served on the San Angelo City Council in the late-2000s. He was appointed the temporary Mayor of San Angelo when then-Mayor J.W. Lown unexpectedly resigned in 2008.