Today is already the first day of early voting in Texas. I’m sitting down today to go through the ballot and figure out—and share—who’s getting my vote in the various races.
I’ve been working hard on the Mark Ramsey for Congressional
District 38 campaign. That has left me less time to go over all the others. So
some I’m still fuzzy about. But at least today I can put together the info I
have. Whatever happens in these races, I’m ready to support the Republican
candidates in the general election, barring some catastrophic news I can’t
foresee.
Today I’ll get through the statewide races. The local races and judicial races will take additional posts later this week.
Governor
Governor Greg
Abbott has a number of challengers this year. People outside Texas might
not be aware of reasons for displeasure. We have a conservative state. We’re
not locked down. Business is growing. In fact, businesses—and people—from locked
down states are moving here in droves.
Public Service Announcement: Y’all are welcome here, but
leave your blue state politics behind.
Anyway, what has Texans riled can be summed up with pandemic
response government overreach. Governor Abbott, in campaign materials, is claiming Texas is
successful because we didn’t lock down. But we did. It was comparatively short, about four
weeks, a week longer for “nonessential” businesses. Then it became a local
prerogative. But we did shut down. Remember the Shelley
Luther, Dallas salon owner, who was arrested for opening back up a few days
early? She had people on her payroll who needed income for food and housing; after a month she had to open up. So, yes, we did shut down. And it took quite a long time
before the state stopped local jurisdictions from forcing lockdowns and
mandates.
And mandates—that’s another thing. We never actually had mask
or vaccine mandates statewide. But we didn’t get the governor to step in
against them until fall 2021. A year and a half of allowing local places to
impose mask mandates—on school children, on workers, on private businesses, on
churches. And vaccine mandates were allowed under certain circumstances—like for
healthcare workers, regardless of whether they had natural immunity. Governor
Abbott’s executive order to stop mandates came at the end of the third special
legislative session. That means it was his fourth opportunity to put forth an
executive order at a time that the legislature could then follow up to make it lawful. But
he waited until it was too late for the legislature to act—until 2023.
Back a decade or more earlier, Governor Rick Perry got into
trouble with Texans by calling for a vaccine mandate of Gardasil for young
women. It’s intended to prevent the spread of some causes of HPV (human
papilloma virus), an STD that can lead to cervical cancer. But it had been
tested on women 16-26 old—so untested on those younger, and he was requiring it
for 12 and up. There were risks, including a few deaths. And it is totally
unnecessary for young women who are not sexually active. He seemed shocked when
there was an uproar against his mandate.
What I don’t understand is any elected official who claims
to believe in the Constitution—and I’ve been a big Abbott fan in the past for
his ability to articulate constitutional principles—thinking they have
authority under any circumstances to force people to put something into their
bodies. Ever. Even if it’s a massive Ebola outbreak. Go ahead and make a
recommendation. But do not suppose you control the sovereign bodies of
individual citizens.
Add to this disappointment the lack of response to the
conservative grassroots and their legislative priorities.
So, Governor Abbot has challengers. There are many, but
foremost are Allen West, Don Huffines, and Chad Prather. I have good and bad to
say about each. You can see candidate forums here and here. Governor Abbott did not participate.
I also recommend checking out the Conservative Coalition of Harris County
voter’s guide and questionnaires. If you go to their website,
you can get their recommendations in a page or two; they only endorse when a
candidate gets 70% of their board’s support. You can also click on the level of
race—federal, state, county—and get the questionnaire answers that the
candidate submitted, and links to other information that candidate provided. This is for Governor and the other state, congressional, and county races.
Allen West, former military, former representative in
Florida, until he was redistricted out of his district and couldn’t retain the
seat. He moved to Texas—his wife’s choice after lots of military-required moves
in their life. Two years ago he ran for state GOP party chair. Name recognition
paid off. We had a good administrator in that position. But the grassroots
elected West—during that weird convention where we were forced at the last
minute to do the largest political gathering in the country (world?) online,
purportedly because of COVID-19. There were tremendous problems involved—including
denial of service hacking. Eventually, then, West took over the remainder of
the convention. And we never really finished. We didn’t get to discuss the
platform. We put off handling remaining business. It was a mess. Not
necessarily caused by him, but not relieved by him either.
Then he steps down less than a year before the next
convention (to be held in person in Houston in June 16-18). I have friends who
explain this. There was a rule that he couldn’t run for governor while holding
that other elected office, and he felt the need to run for governor. There are
those who thought he only ran for RPT chair as a step to something higher, and
now it appears they were right.
West talks a good conservative message. I like that. And he’s
charismatic enough to draw people in. But I have yet to see him actually
succeed in administration.
Then there’s Don Huffines. He’s a former state
senator from near Dallas, with a good conservative voting record. He has an
unfortunate way of sounding like a used car salesman, but there are times I’ve
been leaning toward him. However, in the forums there have been a couple of
things that trigger a negative response. One is his push for replacing state
property tax with some version of a consumption tax, not necessarily a bad
thing. He explained that he’s run the numbers. We run a surplus in Texas, and
that should be used to buy down property taxes, and over time we can convert to
a consumption tax. But, he says this will only take 8 to 10 years. That
may very well be true. But no one can go into office with a plan that they may
not be there to complete and expect it to happen. What mess would we be in if
we were halfway there—with consumption taxes increasing to take over for
property taxes—and then some other leader comes in and keeps the property taxes
too?
Then there’s Chad Prather. When he got in the race, people couldn’t tell if he was serious. He’s an entertainer, with a show on The Blaze, where he does political commentary. And he’s known for being provocative, in a Texas sort of way. He started out doing YouTube videos from his truck, wearing a cowboy hat. The things he said rang true and spread. Sometimes what he says, though, is too spicy for my taste. But in the forums, he actually comes off as the most conversant in the Constitution and how government should be run according to those principles. He’s intelligent, articulate, and convincing. What I don’t know is whether he could actually translate those principles into running a state that’s something like the 12th largest economy in the world. The principles work—every time they’re tried. But would he have the influence to implement the correct principles?
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| Chad Prather, image from his campaign website |
What I expect to happen is that Abbott will win the Primary,
and he will handily be reelected against Democrat challenger Robert Francis “Beto”
O’Rourke, who lost against Ted Cruz in a Senate race a few years ago. This is
the Beto who said, “Heck, yeah, we’re taking their guns,” but has suddenly now
modified to saying he’s a great fan of the 2nd Amendment. That’s not
going to convince anyone here in Texas.
Anyway, I plan to do something of a protest Primary vote,
possibly for Chad Prather, maybe Huffines. This is to let Governor Abbott
know that we expect better from him. Then I’ll support Abbott, who is light
years far and away better than the likes of former Congressman Beto, who
shouldn’t be elected to anything ever again.
I’m going to have to be briefer about the rest of these races.
Lieutenant
Governor
Lt. Governor Dan
Patrick is from our part of Texas. He was state senator for my district
before this position. We want to like him here. But, as with Governor Abbott,
we feel disappointed. When he put out his
priorities at the beginning of last year’s legislative session, it did not fully
encompass the grassroots legislative priorities—the things the state convention
voted on that they wanted the legislature to accomplish. Of our 8 priorities,
some version of 4 got passed, and that was better than any previous Republican-led
legislature in the nearly two decades of GOP leadership. Still, what happened
to the other things? Why, for instance, couldn’t we get a vote on the Senate
floor once our school choice bill made it out of committee—with the support of
even a Democrat committee member? The Lt. Governor is leader of the Senate. His
priorities get done. But this priority did not.
So, again there are challengers: Daniel Miller (website here); Trayce
Bradford (website here); Aaron
Sorrells (website here); Zach Vance
(website here); and Todd
Bullis (website here). There was a
candidate forum (Patrick did not attend) in Wise County; video here.
Daniel Miller is probably the most well-known. He heads the Texas Nationalist Movement (Texit—I wrote about it here), although he’s not talking about that much on the campaign. He would probably see to it that the question gets put before the people of Texas, which is all he’s been asking for—and that is in the party platform. It just never gets anywhere in the legislature, which it must go through first. His book on the subject is convincing, and I’ve leaned toward that. But in truth I want the United States to remain whole and return to the Constitution. So, until that becomes impossible, I think that’s where most Texans are. Nevertheless, Miller knows the law and the Constitution—and the state constitution—better than most. I also have liked some of what Aaron Sorrells said in the forum.
Daniel Miller, image from his campaign website
So,
again, I may do another Primary protest vote here, probably for Daniel
Miller, in the hopes that Lt. Governor Patrick will wake up to our
displeasure that he hasn’t kept faith with us. I think he can do better.
Texas Attorney
General
Texas
Attorney General
Ken Paxton (campaign info here) will have primary challengers
in 2022. He has made national news, and again those outside Texas (and many
inside) will wonder why the challengers. There is a corruption lawsuit always
looming in the background; his defense seems to be saying that it is not
criminal, not that it wasn’t done. I don’t know enough to say. But there have
been a number of issues where my lawyer son Political Sphere has raised
questions about his incompetence. My disappointment has been his slowness to
prosecute election fraud—even when the evidence is laid out for him in detail
from people I know who did the investigation here in Harris County.
The
challengers include current Texas Land Commissioner George P. Bush (campaign
info here), former TX Supreme Court
Justice Eva Guzman (campaign info here), and US Rep. Louie Gohmert (campaign
info here).
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| Eva Guzman, image from her campaign website |
Louie
Gohmert is a US representative, and has been pretty reliably conservative. He also
ruffles feathers. That’s a good thing, if also effective in making good things
happen. Son Political Sphere doesn’t trust that he can translate that into
Attorney General skills.
Eva Guzman, on the other hand, is a former state Supreme Court justice, and definitely has the skills and demeanor. I doubt that she’ll have enough push to oust an incumbent, but I would be pleased to see her in that position. So I’ll give her my vote in the Primary.
Texas General Land Office Commissioner
 |
| Dr. Jon Spiers, image from his campaign website |
I haven’t spent a lot of time on this race. My first impression is to
support Jon Spiers. He’s from here locally, so I got somewhat
acquainted with him several years ago. He was one of eight candidates in the
Congressional District 2 race after the retirement of Rep. Ted Poe; Dan
Crenshaw won that race, but several of the candidates were impressive. Spiers
was quite good on the Obamacare issue, which was on all our minds at the time.
And he was good on other issues as well. He’s a former heart surgeon turned
medical attorney (an accident made it impossible for him to continue doing
heart surgery, so he went to law school). He seems thoroughly conservative.
I suggest, again, looking at their videos. And also check the Conservative Coalition of Harris County voter’s guide and questionnaires.
Texas Agriculture
Commissioner
Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller (campaign info here) will be challenged by Rep. James White (campaign info here) and Carey Counsil (campaign info here). Texas Scorecard article here. Texas Scorecard has video conversations with the each of the three candidates here. Again, this is not a race I have spent a lot of time on. There are whispers of some corruption that I can’t seem to get clarity on. Maybe true, maybe spin, maybe just an attempt to discredit for political reasons. I don’t know. But my outside view is that Sid Miller has been a good Ag Commissioner, and I plan to vote for him.
Sid Miller, Texas Ag Commissioner
screenshot from this campaign video
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| Wayne Christian, image from campaign website |
The
Texas Railroad Commission is a three-person group who handle oil &
gas/energy in the state. There are long historical reasons for the name, which
seems confusing. But this is really about the energy industry in Texas. Only one
of the three is up this election. Texas Railroad Commissioner Wayne
Christian has several challengers. All candidates include Wayne
Christian, Tom Slocum Jr., Sarah Stogner, Marvin “Sarge” Summers, Dawayne
Tipton. I suggest, again, the CCHC
questionnaire, which also shows links to their websites and social media.
But my impression is that Wayne Christian has done well enough and
will get my vote.
Texas Comptroller
This
is essentially an accounting, or treasurer position. Mark Goloby is challenging Glenn Hegar
for Texas Comptroller. Goloby campaign info here.
Hegar campaign info here. Goloby is actually precinct
chair of my next-door precinct. He spent several years accomplishing putting an
end to the Chapter 313 problem. He spoke at our Tea Party on this. It wasn’t an
easy issue to take on, because it takes some explanation (I never seem able to
repeat the explanations afterward). I supported him in that effort and was glad
the legislature finally did what was needed—which was actually to do nothing,
to not renew. But Goloby is saying the Comptroller hasn’t yet updated
practices. And there are some other issues.
Overall I think Glenn Hegar has been a good Comptroller. One story I read acknowledged this, but added that he ought to deal with the issues brought up by his challenger. If he does that, we can be satisfied. So Hegar will get my vote—and we’ll be watching.
Glenn Hegar, image from campaign website
Next up, in a post later this week, will be the US congressional races and other local and county races. There
are a few statewide judicial races, but rather than include them today, I’ll handle them in a separate post that
will include local judicial races as well.
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