Former Democratic state Rep. Leo Pacheco is trying to reclaim his old state House seat, but under the Republican banner.

Pacheco once chaired the Bexar County Democratic Party in the 1990s, and even won Southside’s state House District 118 by defeating an incumbent Democrat in the primary in 2018.

After supporting a permitless carry gun law in the Texas Legislature, however, he was censured by the local Democratic Party.

Pacheco later resigned his state House seat before the end of his second term to teach at San Antonio College — paving the way for Republicans to take the seat in a special election and ultimately hold what had been a longtime Democratic stronghold in a general election the following November.

Now incumbent state Rep. John Lujan (R-San Antonio) is running for

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