History suggests the answer is no, not really. But maybe this time will be different. There’s gotta be a line somewhere. Right?
Rep. Jon Rosenthal
After a Republican primary that focused on fighting Sharia law and diversity policies, the general election for a seat on Texas’ oil and gas regulatory agency is shaping up as a partisan brawl with more talk of issues unrelated to its core functions.
Bo French, a scion of the Texas GOP’s hard-right flank, is now turning his attention to a November matchup with state Rep. Jon Rosenthal, D-Houston, after French ousted incumbent Jim Wright in last month’s runoff. Rosenthal, who ran unopposed in the Democratic primary, is aiming to upset French and win a seat on the Texas Railroad Commission by touting his two decades of experience as an oil field engineer, betting he can win crossover support from voters turned off by French’s emphasis on the culture wars.
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“My philosophy from the very beginning has just been to run based on the issues, my background, and my technical expertise,” Rosenthal told The Texas Tribune. “To build coalitions around these specific issues that are for the Railroad Commission, and that the general public, whether they understand the Railroad Commission’s role in these things or not, they’re worried about our energy grid, they’re worried about our electric bills, they’re worried about pollution.”
Nancy Sims, a political scientist at the University of Houston, said partisan rhetoric is sure to clash with Rosenthal’s effort to keep the Railroad Commission in the spotlight, if not overshadow it altogether. The contentious social issues driving French’s campaign will only be amplified, Sims said, by races higher up the ballot that reliably wade into those same topics, making it even harder for Rosenthal to sell voters on the nuts and bolts of government.
“In this office, it would be great if Texans were paying attention to the issues the Railroad Commission deals with, like abandoned wells, contaminated water and the many issues that affect oil and gas production,” Sims said. “But that is probably not the No. 1 issue for Texans when they go vote this fall.”
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“Whether we were going to go up against an incumbent we saw as corrupt and self-dealing, or against the chaos candidate, the ideologue … it didn’t matter too much. We were still going to run an issues-based campaign, and I still plan to do that,” Rosenthal said. “I personally wish for a world where government just goes back to being boring and doing their dang job.”
Complicating Rosenthal’s task is that most of the public is unfamiliar with the Railroad Commission, which has had nothing to do with railroads for over 20 years.
Still, he is charging ahead with plans to campaign on under-the-radar issues the Railroad Commission deals with, such as enforcing weatherization requirements — standards companies have to meet to ensure their gas facilities are equipped for extreme weather — and selling voters on the pitch that this will keep energy costs at bay for consumers. He’d also push to impose a new fee for saltwater disposals, the practice of injecting industry wastewater below the surface. That would fund plugging wells, of which there are at least 10,000 across the state. He’d also raise bonds and cash deposits for operators, which would also help fund plugging such wells.
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Jerry Bullard, director of the Reeves County Emergency Services District in oil-rich West Texas, said he hopes the Railroad Commission’s functions get their share of attention on the campaign trail. Reeves County has experienced earthquakes, fires and oil wells bursting with chemical slush, which pose environmental and safety risks for his community.
“If they want the West Texas vote, they’ll talk about water and plugging wells,” Bullard said. “That’s what people want to hear.”
See here for some background. I skipped the parts of the story that quoted French because he’s trash. I feel like this was a missed opportunity to ask someone like Jerry Bullard if he was familiar with what the candidates were actually saying on the trail and if so what he thought of them. Reeves County is an interesting case here, because it’s one of those places that flipped hard red in 2024 – 52.3% for Beto in 2018, but 68.0% for Trump in 2024. It might be very illuminating to get some perspective from a county like that, especially from a voter with stakes in what the RRC does. Just a thought.
Just yesterday I was reading a quote in the Guardian from a man on the street interview where the quotee contended that any candidate form either party who could stop focusing on culture war stuff – and instead focused on focused on bread and butter issues – would “win in a landslide.” Obviously that person was a (Texas) Republican marinated in irony. Republicans couldn’t recognize a core issue if it converted to Islam and entered the wrong bathroom.