Keith Self has represented Texas's 3rd District — Collin County and the northern Dallas suburbs — since 2023. He chairs a subcommittee on Foreign Affairs, so he has real power in Washington. Here are three things his neighbors in Plano, McKinney and Wylie should know about how he uses it.
1. He did hold a town hall — and 300 of his own constituents told him what they thought
Give him this much: unlike a lot of his colleagues, Self actually stood in a room with the people he represents.
It did not go well. At his March 1, 2025 "Koffee with Keith" event at the Collin College Conference Center in Wylie, more than 300 constituents repeatedly heckled him, chanting "vote you out!" and giving him thumbs-down as he defended DOGE cuts and the House budget. Protesters outside held signs reading "Dump Musk." Inside, he took 19 questions on DOGE, Ukraine and Medicaid.
Afterward, Self posted that it was "a great opportunity to connect with my constituents in TX-03."
That's the tell. Three hundred people told him to his face that he was on the wrong side, and his takeaway was that it went great. The county Republican Party's explanation was that the crowd was just Democrats who showed up to cause disruptions. But this is Collin County — a district Republicans have held for decades. The people in that room were his neighbors.
Showing up matters. Listening is the other half of the job.
2. He's the lead sponsor of a federal abortion bill — in a state where the ban is already deadly
Texas has a near-total abortion ban, and we now know what it has cost. ProPublica found that after the ban took effect, the rate of sepsis in second-trimester pregnancy-loss hospitalizations jumped more than 50%, and identified at least 120 in-hospital deaths of pregnant and postpartum women in 2022 and 2023. The danger is so undeniable that Texas's own Republican-led legislature passed a bill to clarify the ban's medical exceptions after those reports came out.
Self's response to all of that was to push for more, at the federal level. On January 31, 2025 he introduced the Ensuring Justice for Victims of Partial-Birth Abortion Act as its lead sponsor — a bill to ramp up enforcement of the federal partial-birth abortion ban. Not fixing the exceptions doctors say are killing women. Enforcement.
About two-thirds of Americans believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases, according to Pew. Self has decided that the government knows better than you and your doctor what happens to your body.
3. His lifetime environmental score is 1%
That's not a typo. The League of Conservation Voters scores every member of Congress on how they vote on clean air, clean water and climate. Keith Self's score is 3% for 2025, and 1% for his career.
A 1% lifetime score means that on virtually every chance he's had to protect the air his district breathes and the water it drinks, he voted the other way. And his district needs that protection. The American Lung Association's 2026 report ranks Dallas-Fort Worth the 9th worst metro area in the country for ozone pollution — smog that got worse, not better, over the past year.
Those votes back an agenda with a body count attached. The EPA has moved to stop counting the lives saved when it writes air pollution rules, and analysts warn the rollbacks will increase cancer-causing pollution. Trump's budget bill slashed through the country's clean energy programs.
Somebody benefits from all that. Look at who funds him — Chevron is on the list. Kids with asthma aren't.
Whose side is Keith Self on?
Three hundred neighbors in a room said one thing; he heard applause. Texas women are dying under a ban his own party is scrambling to soften; he wrote a bill to enforce more of it. His district breathes some of the dirtiest air in the country; he votes with the polluters 99% of the time.
Pick any one of the three and the answer lands in the same place — the people of Collin County are not who he's checking with before he votes. They get their turn in 2026.
