Political career
Reynolds first vied in the 2008 Texas House of Representatives Democratic party primary election for District 27, against the incumbent, Dora Olivo. [15]
Reynolds garnered 14,634 votes (49.7%) to Olivo's 14,821 (50.3%). In 2010, he vied in the Democratic primaries again and unseated Olivo after polling 5,158 (57.6%) to 3,791 (42.4%). [16] In the same year's general election, he beat Derek Dean Grayson of the Libertarian party. [17] He was sworn in on 10 January 2011 as State Representative, House District 27. [6]
In 2012, he ran unopposed in the Democratic party primaries and won re-election with 69% of the votes in the general election. [17] Reynolds was elected for a third term during the 2014 general election after polling 24,326 (67%) against David Wayne Hamilton's 11,990. [17] Reynolds was opposed by Angelique Bartholomew in the runoff for the Democratic party primaries for the 27th district in 2016. Reynolds led in the March 1, 2016, primary but came up about 250 votes short to avoid a runoff election. He finished first in the four candidate primary with about 48.5% of the vote. Angelique Bartholomew received 24.1%. The runoff election occurred on May 24, 2016. [18] Reynolds was supported by Al Green, Sheila Jackson Lee, Sylvester Turner, and the Democratic party chair of Fort Bend County in what was his first primary challenge since he had been elected and won the runoff election [19] by a vote of 53% to 47%. [20] He survived the low-turnout runoff election by 225 votes. [21] He faced the Republican party politician Ken Bryant in the 2016 general election. [22] During the Democratic primaries in 2018, he beat his opponent Wilvin Carter with 61.37%. He won the 2018 general election unopposed while in jail as the Republican party did not field a candidate. [9] [23]
During the 2020 general election, he defeated Tom Virippan to win re-election. [24] Reynolds was arrested with U.S. congressman Al Green during a voting rights protest in front of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington D.C. in 2021. [25] [26] He was one of many Democrats who had arrest warrants issued to them after they refused to join a special session ordered by Greg Abbott in August 2021. [27] He founded the Texas House Progressive Caucus in 2021 and in 2022, he polled 70.3% of the votes to beat the Republican party candidate, Sohrab Gilani. [28] Reynolds was elected Chair of the Texas Legislative Black Caucus in August 2022. [6] He led the charge to form the first-ever Texas Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) Legislative Caucus in 2023. [29]
Political views
Abortion
Reynolds is in favor of abortion rights and is pro-choice. [30]
Cannabis
A joint resolution introduced by Reynolds called for an amendment to the state Constitution that would direct Texas legislators to "authorize and regulate the possession, cultivation, and sale of cannabis for medical use in this state." [31]
Justice system
When his conviction was overturned in 2014, Reynolds offered a critique of the justice system of Montgomery County, saying "I have a very strong conviction I didn't get a fair trial, but even bigger I believe it's difficult for [an] African-American to get [a] fair trial in Montgomery County, Texas". [32]
Reynolds has supported criminal justice reform bills such as grants to police departments for police body cameras, grand jury reform, and James White's bill to decriminalize truancy. [33] He supported a bill that would require a special prosecutor in cases of officer-involved shootings. Reynolds believes that his legal problems were politically and racially motivated, [34] and that he is the victim of selective prosecution. [35] In 2015, Reynolds likened a criminal case against him as a "modern day lynching". [2]
Minimum wage
In 2019, Reynolds proposed a bill to raise the minimum wage of Texas to $15 an hour. He said, "We need to close the economic gap here in Texas, working full time and trying to support a family on less than $15,000 a year is impossible." [36]
Reparations
Reynolds proposed legislation that would have Texas pay reparations amounting to $95 million to descendants of the Sugar Land 95, which were 95 19th-century African Americans that were forced to work in a plantation in Sugar Land, Texas, under the convict lease system. He suggested that identification could be done by testing DNA. [37]
Gaza-Israel conflict
In November 2023, Reynolds was a signer of a letter urging the Biden administration to secure additional humanitarian aid [38] and push for a ceasefire in Israel's war on Gaza. [39] He signed a later letter urging the administration "to reassess the unconditional aid provided to Israel" in the hope that they would "not hesitate to halt the provision of offensive weapons in order to prevent any future human rights violations." [40]
Ethical and legal issues
Reynolds was sanctioned twice by the State Bar of Texas [46] in 2005 for professional misconduct. [30] He was suspended from practicing law from April 1, 2005, [47] to June 30, 2006, and placed on a probated suspension ending on June 30, 2009. [48]
During his first political campaign in 2008, the Texas Ethics Commission terminated his campaign treasurer. Reynolds afterwards continued to raise and spend campaign funds, although the Texas Election Code prohibits candidates from doing so until a campaign treasurer report is filed with the Texas Ethics Commission. He hired a new campaign treasurer six months after his initial treasurer was removed. [42]
Reynolds turned himself in to Harris County authorities on April 24, 2012 after he was accused of barratry or "illegally pursuing clients for his law office". He was arrested and in jail for one day before he was freed on a $5,000 bond. An undercover investigation by the Harris County district attorney's office determined that a chiropractic business was persuading patients to sign attorney client contracts before the patient had been examined or had met Reynolds. [49] The case was dropped by prosecutors in February 2013 after some investigators were charged with stealing evidence from other cases. [50]
On March 25, 2013, the Houston law office of Reynolds, the offices of seven other attorneys, and two chiropractic offices were raided by authorities in connection to a $25 million kickback scheme. [51] Reynolds turned himself in to the Montgomery County Jail the next day and was arrested on two counts of barratry. His bond was set at $5,000 for each count. [52] He was indicted by Mongomery County grand jury and accused of participation in a Conroe-based scheme with seven other attorneys to pay a four-time convicted felon to steer accident victims to their practices by looking through Houston police traffic accident reports to find potential clients. [12] Reynolds and the seven other attorneys were accused of paying kickbacks. He was charged with barratry, a third-degree felony with a maximum of 10 years in prison. [53] Investigators said they had procured about 12,000 pages of documents, including hours of recorded audio interviews, phone records, and statements from four separate banks, that had tied Reynolds to the barratry scheme. [54]
Reynolds denied the charges, saying that he had also "voted for new laws holding lawyers guilty of barratry more accountable to their victims." The assistant Montgomery County district attorney said that it seemed Reynolds had returned to the scheme after his first case was dismissed. [55] He was convicted of six counts of solicitation of professional employment, a misdemeanor. [56] However on November 10, the judge declared a mistrial after a juror reported she had been influenced by outside information [57] during deliberations. [58] A new trial was scheduled for January 5, 2015, about a week before the beginning of the 84th legislative session. [32]
In August 2015, it was reported that the prosecutors had looked into retrying Reynolds with the felony barratry charge, but ended up agreeing with the defense that it would have constituted double jeopardy so instead prosecutors filed misdemeanor charges. [59] In November 2015, Reynolds represented himself in court precedings, later saying, "Everybody advised me not to do it, but who would best represent me other than me? I know the most about this case". Reynolds was the only one of the eight attorneys charged who did not accept a plea deal and took the case to trial. [60] During the trial, the Texas Ethics Commission's enforcement director testified that Reynolds had failed to file eight campaign finance reports by the legally required deadline, he had also owed $20,000 in fines and had three default judgements against him. [61] The organizer of the scheme testified that he was paid thousands of dollars to find accident victims for Reynolds' law firm to represent. [62]
He was convicted of five counts of illegal solicitation of legal clients on November 16, 2015, given a $4,000 [63] or $20,000 fine, and sentenced to one year in prison. He had represented himself previously in the trial, but Harold Dutton joined him at the defense table on November 16. [64] Reynolds planned to appeal the decision. [63]
In April 2016, Reynolds was ordered to pay a former client $504,000. He was accused of winning a monetary settlement for a client whose daughter died in a car crash and then keeping her share of the money. [65] Also in the same month, a Harris County judge ordered Reynolds to pay more than $95,000 to a couple after he had reached a settlement without informing them or having their consent. [18] The next month it was reported that his law license had been suspended [66] by the Supreme Court of Texas's Board of Disciplinary Appeals. It was also reported that he missed the filing deadline of May 16 to report his campaign fundraising information and that he owed over $30,000 in fines to the Texas Ethics Commission for failing to file campaign and personal financial statements on time. [67] Reynolds filed for chapter 7 bankruptcy in 2016. [20] He listed he owed $3,000 in unpaid Houston-area tolls, $15,000 to the Texas Ethics Commission for failing to file financial disclosure forms, [21] and faced $1.3 million in debt. [68]
A three-judge appellate panel upheld his 2015 conviction for misdemeanor barratry in November 2017. Reynolds said he would continue to appeal the conviction and remain free on a $25,000 appeal bond. [69] When he filed two campaign financial reports in February 2018 after missing nine filing deadlines, it had been two years since he had filed any reports. [70] The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals refused to review his case in May 2018. [71]
Reynolds became Montgomery County jail inmate number 232573 on September 7, 2018, the first day of his year-long sentence. [72] Reynolds was released on January 4, 2019, just days before the beginning of the 86th legislative session. [73] He was formally disbarred by the State Bar of Texas on July 29, 2019, after having been in an interlocutory suspension for 2 years and 2 months. [4] [74]
Reports have named Reynolds as owing the most in fines to the Texas Ethics Commission compared to any other lawmaker in 2017, [75] 2018, [72] and 2024. As of July 2024, Reynolds owed over $77,000 in fines to the Texas Ethics Commission. [76] In 2017, Reynolds said he was on a payment plan of $1,000 a month with the Texas Ethics Commission. [75] However, later in the year his total fines had only increased and he still had the highest fine on the Texas Ethics Commission's list of owed fines from delinquent filers. [77]
