Fort Bend County, TX– Maybe you’ve done your homework on each candidate; maybe you haven’t. Before the upcoming 2024 election cycle, we urge you to follow candidates closely; this will give you the keenest insight into their actual character, rather than their pre-election facades. We at Katy and Fort Bend Christian Magazines would like to introduce you to one honest judge we’ve had our eyes on for quite some time.
This man is Judge Steve Rogers, who currently serves as a Republican on the 268th District Court in Fort Bend County. Rogers is running for the 14th Court of Appeals Place 4. In March, he will face off against Tonya Rolland McLaughlin in the Republican primaries. If he wins this race, he will be head-to-head with incumbent candidate Justice Charles A. Spain (D).
We’re acquainted ourselves with the judge and have become quite enamored with his values and contributions to our justice system. But decide for yourself; let’s explore Rogers’ background and legal ethics.
Q: Discuss your educational, career and personal backgrounds, and how these will aid you in your prospective seat as justice in the 14th Court of Appeals.
A: “I was born and raised in Houston,” Rogers began. “When I graduated from Baylor, I was accepted at CBNU, now Regent Law School (Pat Robertson’s school) in Virginia. I attended the 1L year at Regent and completed a Master of Arts in Public Policy there under the late Herb Titus.”
“Then, I relocated to California so that I could work to live and go to school at night. I completed an MBA at Pepperdine University and finished the final two years of my Juris Doctor at Trinity Law School. Before taking and passing the Arizona bar on the first try, I completed my Master of Laws degree (with 3.75GPA) “Magna Cum Laude”; all while working full time in the real estate title industry.”
“Today, on Tuesday, October 24, I will have been a licensed attorney for 20 years. During my first five years as an attorney, I opened several offices doing IRC Sec 1031 exchanges. While in Arizona, my wife became pregnant with our second child, our first boy, and we decided he should be born over Texas soil, like his father. I have an older cousin whose husband took her to Maine for work. During that period, she became pregnant with her first boy.
“My paternal grandfather went out into the yard of their home in Fort Worth and put some dirt in a box, which he promptly shipped to her in Maine to place under the hospital bed for the delivery. All of the men in our family have been born over Texas soil, dating back eight generations.”
“Then, I applied and got hired by a 4000-employee, 60-country oil services firm in Houston, where I was one of two in-house lawyers for 10 years. Because I represented the CEO, who also owned a charter airline in many personal matters, I was able to get some valuable courtroom experience,” Rogers reflected.
“Then, I went to work for the County of Brazoria as an assistant district attorney for a very brief period before resigning to run for Fort Bend County Attorney. I poured my heart, soul and kid’s college fund into that race. And I lost. Yet this journey built the foundation upon which I ran successfully for district judge two years later.”
“I am well positioned to serve because I am a sitting judge with actual judicial experience. My advanced academic training in law is the exact kind of writing that will be required for the court of appeals, and my diverse practice experience covers the variety of topics heard by the appeals court.”
Q: Tell us about your community involvements.
A: “My family has always been serious about community involvement. My great great grandfather, William Stephen Mosher, was honored by Star of Hope ministries for his contributions by the erection of the Mosher Bible Monument outside the Harris County Courthouse, where my chambers would be in 1953,” Rogers recalled.
“The monument was torn down in 2006 after an atheist jogger noticed the open Bible in the monument and sued Harris County. The county didn’t have the stomach to fight all the way to the US Supreme Court to keep it.”
“In Virginia, I worked with CBN in all their outreaches and even spent time with the nascent Christian Coalition during Ralph Reed’s tenure. Before marriage, I was heavily involved in a Christian training ministry out of California, which sought to make disciples who loved God and their neighbor. My wife and I have always been very active in ministry. Since meeting my wife, we have been involved together in marriage and family ministries throughout the Greater Houston area.”
“We have counseled over 2,000 couples preparing for marriage, and many seeking a richer, fuller marriage. The entire family dances and serves with the ministries of Cookie Joe’s Dancin’ School and the Asian American Dance Company. The dancers perform for an audience of One and do shows for many ministries in Fort Bend County and Harris County. Every year, the company performs at the Wortham in Houston with all the proceeds going to benefit Star of Hope and its homeless ministries for the men, women and children.”
“It’s funny how this circle came around in my family. I would say it’s God,” Rogers remarked.
Q: What is your relationship with your family like?
A: “My father left us when I was eleven,” Rogers confided. “We saw him on some weekends, but it was always turbulent. My mother married and divorced five times, and now lives with her brother in Dallas. I have one sister, who has been wed and divorced three times. She has three adult daughters and also lives in Dallas.”
“I didn’t want this for myself. I read all the Christian self-help and marriage books I could find. I spent a lot of time looking for the right person, and I didn’t find her until I was 34. My wife moved from Burlington, Iowa, to Los Angeles, California, to teach school in the inner cities fresh out of college.”
“During her first week there, she posted a personal ad on AOL, back when it was free, and I answered it. We will have been married for 22 years in November. We have four children, ages 8 to 18; a girl and three boys. My children have experienced a variety of academic environments, including Catholic mother’s day out, Christian school, six years at the public Mandarin Immersion Magnet School in Houston, where my daughter became mostly fluent in Chinese, and now, home schooling on our family farm in southern Fort Bend County.”
“We all enjoy watching the sheep and collecting the eggs, and even though we have several beekeeper suits in various sizes, that task usually falls on me. My wife has a huge servant’s heart, and the children, to their credit, are following in her footsteps. My 18-year-old is now in school to be a court reporter and I am very proud of her.”
Q: Tell us about your relationship with the Lord.
A: “I became a born-again Christian at a secular summer camp in Florissant, Colorado, after a camp counselor got up and gave his testimony around the campfire. He grasped dirt, sticks and leaves in his hand, and showed us how Jesus wiped sin away in salvation. I will never forget that,” Rogers reminisced.
“He was later fired for that and for witnessing to many of my Jewish friends who were fellow campers. I was baptized at Second Baptist Church on Woodway in Houston when I was ten years old. We became members at Second when I was six. We were in what I like to call the ‘inter pastoral period’ when I was baptized by one of the elders at Second. I can still remember the transformation from the little country church to the Fellowship of Excitement with the country pastor named H. Edwin Young.”
Q: Explain your judicial philosophies, and how you will differ from incumbent Justice Spain if elected.
A: “Justice Spain is a progressive who wants to move the law to fit the current culture. I am an originalist who wants to ground the law in precedent,” Rogers emphasized. “Reinventing the wheel is never a sound judicial philosophy, unless the law violates the Laws of Nature and the Laws of Nature’s God.”
“In the Garcia case, Spain joined in the majority which was overturned after vacating a conviction despite a statute clearly stating the opposite. In the Melgar case, Spain joined in the majority which was overturned when it held insufficient evidence to support a murder conviction despite the jury. In the Najar case, Spain wrote that a jury hearing a siren during the trial was an outside influence that required it be overturned.”
“There are so many instances like this, it would fill a book. Any Republican will be better than Spain,” he declared.
Q: Additionally, do you have any other strong stances in policy that you’d like to mention now?
A: “I believe in individual liberties. I think Jefferson, although a Diest, was guided by the hand of God in his drafting of the Declaration of Independence. He certainly wasn’t wrong when he listed ‘life’ as the first of three unalienable rights. I am strongly pro-life, pro-liberty and pro-pursuit of happiness,” Rogers responded.
Q: How do you fund your campaign?
A: “I rely on donations from like-minded individuals who want to see a Republican win this seat. Judicial candidates are restricted by law in receiving large donations, but you can give up to $5,000, if you are so inclined at SteveRogers.com.”
Q: Lastly, in light of all of the RINOs and political deception within our court systems, why should our readers place their faith in you as the conservative you claim to be?
A: “I am an imperfect person in an imperfect world who seeks what the Lord requires of me; to do justly, love mercy and to walk humbly with my God (Micah 6:8),” Rogers professed.
“It’s easier to hold justices accountable than the other branches of government, because we have to spell out our reasoning in the opinions, which should be based on precedent or they are likely to be overturned. I believe that our Founders were geniuses who were inspired to create the greatest system of government in history. Our Texas founders sought to copy the U.S. and achieved a pretty good result. I am guided by the same principles that guided them.”
So, why consider electing Judge Steve Rogers for the 14th Court of Appeals? If his Q&A didn’t provide enough insight into his upstanding character, perhaps his testimony on his campaign website will:
“I believe in God and that we are all created equal under the law. I went to one of the very few Christian law schools in the country that teaches law from a Christian perspective. With that, I have always wanted to dedicate my life to serving others. That’s one of the reasons I became a Judge. ‘Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s’ is something I take with me into the courtroom as part of my judicial philosophy. Not everything belongs to the government.”
“That’s why I believe in following the law, and following the constitution. Woke politics doesn’t belong in the courtroom. If we simply had more Judges who followed the law and the constitution, we would have a much better, safer country with less crime. It’s time to end the practice of legislating from the bench!”
“I believe that when you elect a Judge, they need to show up to work and do their job. In Texas, Judges are allowed to set their own schedules, and some of them never show up for work and I’m sick of it. I am sick and tired of Judges who see the backlog, see the crime, campaign and get elected, then do nothing! Enough is enough. Let’s get to work.”
