Bexar County Democrats chose Michelle Lowe Solis, a retired Assistant Deputy Under Secretary for the U.S. Air Force, to chair the local political party.
Lowe Solis spent 36 years working for the Department of Defense, starting as an intern at Brooks Air Force Base and ending in a role that oversaw the Air Force’s business operations.
“I was responsible for managing and overseeing the business side of the Air Force,” Lowe Solis told the county precinct chairs charged with electing a new party leader over a roughly three-hour Zoom meeting Thursday night. “I understand large organizations, and I think I can bring that skill set the Bexar County Democratic Party.”
Exiting chair Monica Ramirez Alcántara was elected to the role in 2018, and announced her resignation days after the Nov. 5 election. She had endorsed a different candidate, retired elementary school principal Terri Flores Lopez, who finished one vote behind Lowe Solis in a runoff.
A third candidate, Larry Romo, who served as President Barack Obama’s Selective Service director, was eliminated in the first round, and he endorsed Lowe Solis.
“You have an embarrassment of riches here in Bexar County,” said Texas Democratic Party officer Kendall Scudder, who was tapped to facilitate the vote.
After retiring in 2021, Lowe Solis and her husband, Joel Solis, moved home to San Antonio from the Washington D.C. area with plans to get involved in politics.
Michelle Lowe Solis became involved with Mothers Against Greg Abbott — which has since rebranded as Mothers for Democracy — and she still serves on its leadership team.
Joel Solis ran unsuccessfully for City Council in District 10 in 2023. The couple has been very involved in the Northeast Bexar County Democrats.
“After January 6, my husband and I, we retired, and we came back home and we decided to dedicate ourselves to this fight,” Lowe Solis said of their recent political activity.
Leaders of two local Democratic groups, the Northeast Bexar County Democrats and the Tejano Democrats, endorsed Lowe Solis in hopes she can unite a party that for years struggled to take direction from Alcántara.
Among the changes Lowe Solis has promised to make is a return to some form of in-person meetings, which Alcántara’s critics want. The precinct chairs have voted to continue online-only meetings since COVID-19, but some say the tightly-managed meetings have been used to stifle dissension.
“We’ve got to build community… we’ve got to know each other, and we’ve got to meet each other, and we’ve got to work together in order to do that,” Lowe Solis said during Thursday’s chair election meeting. “…I think hybrid meetings [in-person with the option to participate online] would help make sure that we’ve got each other’s back, that we’re breaking bread together.”
She said the party also need to do a better job of filling empty precinct chair positions.
“Precinct chairs are our boots on the ground,” Lowe Solis said. “We need to recruit precinct chairs, because we have 203 out of almost 800 precincts that are filled. We’ve got some work to do there.”
