After working at the prestigious corporate law firm Baker Botts for more than a decade, Shannon Hutcheson decided to hang out a shingle of her own. Along with a colleague, in 2011 she started the women-owned boutique law firm Hutcheson Bowers, which specialized in representing businesses on labor and employment matters and quickly developed a sterling reputation in the Austin legal community. In 2014, the Travis County Women Lawyers’ Association awarded it law firm of the year.
Now Hutcheson is running as a Democrat in Texas’ gerrymandered 10th Congressional District, which carves up parts of liberal Austin and stretches across a string of ruby-red rural counties all the way to suburban Houston. The 10th District, currently held by the uber-wealthy and influential GOP incumbent Michael McCaul, is a top-tier target for national Democrats heading into 2020; national political groups are already throwing their weight into the three-way Democratic primary.
On paper, Hutcheson looks like a solid candidate. Her first-time bid for public office has gained an improbable amount of traction. Last week, EMILY’s List—a highly influential pro-choice political group that works to get women elected to Congress—endorsed Hutcheson, the sole woman in a primary that also includes Mike Siegel, a progressive who ran for the district in 2018 and unexpectedly cut down the margins by a substantial amount.
