State Rep. Terri Leo Wilson has appealed a district judge’s denial of her free‑speech motion to throw out Barbers Hill Education Foundation’s lawsuit against her, blocking her from recouping attorney’s fees.
The foundation sued Leo Wilson (R–Galveston) on February 11 for defamation and business disparagement based on her comments about Barbers Hill ISD, the Barbers Hill Education Foundation, and foundation Director Nathan Watkins, her opponent in the March 2026 Republican primary. “I think based on what I have discovered between the ISD and the education foundation and his directorship of the foundation that he is running to make legal what may be illegal,” Leo Wilson had stated.
Watkins is a vice president at Americus Holdings. In January, it was widely reported that Barbers Hill Education Foundation (BHEF) bought property from Americus for more than $6 million, and the two partnered to develop a luxury apartment complex.
BHEF claimed Leo Wilson’s comments would “irreparably tarnish” the foundation’s “good name and charitable purposes.” On February 23, it filed a “notice of nonsuit.” She would have had to agree because she had already filed a motion to dismiss under the Texas Citizens Participation Act, the state’s free‑speech protection law.
She refused and wanted Judge Randy McDonald of the 344th Judicial District Court to require the foundation to reimburse her attorney fees. He denied her motion.
In her June 2 filing with the Fourteenth Court of Appeals in Houston, a state court, Leo Wilson argued that the judge made two key mistakes.
First, she claimed he treated her motion as a normal summary-judgment one, requiring Leo Wilson to prove the lawsuit was frivolous, instead of the foundation having to provide concrete evidence that her quote caused it harm. Second, she claimed that Judge McDonald refused to examine whether her words were statements of fact, opinions, or political rhetoric.
Furthermore, she argued Judge McDonald looked only at her words in isolation instead of analyzing the full context—the news article quoting her, the campaign, and existing criticisms of BHEF.
“I believe the TCPA legal standard was not followed by the lower court. Political speech is protected free speech,” Leo Wilson wrote in a statement to Texas Scorecard. “Any citizen, including a candidate, has the right to say why they think their opponent is running for office.”
She noted that her comments were “clearly directed” at Watkins, not the foundation, but it was the foundation that sued her.
“I believe my opponent, who is a director of the 501c3, along with the superintendent and the majority of board members who supported him, used the foundation for political law-fare,” she wrote. “They then non-suited, leaving me with thousands of dollars in attorney’s fees … never having to show how the foundation was actually ‘damaged’ by my comments regarding my political opponent, recruited by the superintendent, who is also the executive director of the Foundation.”
Leo Wilson added that since suing her the foundation has grown from $175 million to $250 million. As previously reported, an activist raised questions about BHEF’s use of taxpayer monies meant to benefit students. Eight years of the foundation’s federal filings show it returned just three percent of monies it received to Barbers Hill ISD.
The Texas Education Agency launched an investigation into the school district in February, which an agency spokesperson stated “remains open and ongoing.”
“Allowing a sitting state representative to make unsubstantiated allegations of illegal activity that she cannot substantiate sets a horrible precedent. Enough time has gone by that one would think she would have produced evidence of her salacious allegations,” Barbers Hill ISD Superintendent Greg Poole wrote in a statement to Texas Scorecard. “The only thing our Foundation is guilty of is success.”
Poole is also the foundation’s executive director.
