by: Staff
TYLER, TX—Texas State House Rep. Matt Schaefer (TX-6) made national headlines last week when his positions on gun control in the wake of the recent Texas mass shootings went viral.
Schaefer came under fire when he spoke out against common-sense “red flag” laws and against enhanced background checks on his official Twitter account.
With Schaefer striking a rough spot in the national conversation, democratic activists in the Texas political community have begun to seek a challenger against him.
Julie Gobble, a current college student at The University of Texas at Tyler and an aspiring actress, was reported to have established a campaign exploratory committee in order to run for a State House seat.
Gobble recently took on Schaefer for his positions on gun control, and later started an official Facebook page titled “Julie Gets Political”. Last week, she tweeted “wanna talk about getting Matt Schaefer out of office?” to a Texas-based journalist.
However, Gobble’s old Twitter account resurfaced in the wake of her potential campaign challenge, which includes multiple tweets with racial expletives.
In tweets from 2013, Gobble, who describes herself as caucasian, wrote “oh my goodness. That means you’re lookin rootalicious! Jk I’m sure you look fine, but just text me and I’ll help a nigga out.”
On another occasion, Gobble again used the racial expletive and wrote “I wish a nigga would.”
Last year, Gobble on her new and presumably official Twitter account also retweeted “Lolol” on a post which claimed “If you have a crush on me tell me before i spend my valentines day money on drugs”. The account of the original tweet, username @whosalexander, has been suspended due to violating Twitter’s policies.
Recently, Gobble made local news when she was ruled out of order when she began yelling out of turn at board members while attending a Meals on Wheels Texas Board Meeting. She was later asked to leave the meeting.
Tyler is not known for its quiet share of controversy in recent years.
Scandal-plagued U.S. Rep. Louie Gohmert, whose district includes Tyler, once claimed there was a Muslim Brotherhood infiltration in our federal government, and recently publicly attacked gun reform activists.
Now, Gohmert is being challenged for his seat by rancher Hank Gilbert (D), who has his own fair share of legal troubles.
In 2001, Gilbert was charged and criminally convicted of a Class C Theft in Texas, and was later booked again in 2009 on outstanding warrants. In 2010, Gilbert failed to appear in court in a lawsuit against him by his former campaign consultant and was found in default by the Court.
Both Schaefer’s and Gohmert’s districts lean heavily republican and are favored to win their respective races.
UPDATE: Since the publishing of this article, Julie Gobble announced her campaign for TX-6 and deleted her old Twitter account. However, The Daily Fold still has the screenshots provided above, and her old Twitter page should still show up on internet cache. We have provided further screenshots below to show proof that the account existed, courtesy of Google’s European Cache, as well as a Tweet which matches her birthday according to voter files.
[Header photos courtesy of The Tyler Loop, Texas Legislature, & Twitter]
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