This NY Times piece doesn't reflect well on our governor.
-Angela
Governor Struggles to Lead as Texas Republicans Splinter Into Factions
He was the state’s first new governor in 14 years, following the record-breaking tenure
of Rick Perry. He was the first governor to use a wheelchair, and the
first lawyer turned governor in three decades. His wife, Cecilia, the
granddaughter of Mexican immigrants, became the state’s first Hispanic
first lady.
But
none of that has defined his tenure more than his role as the first
governor of Trump-era Texas, heading a Republican Party buffeted by
gale-force winds from the right in a state far more chaotic, divided and
unsteady than its Obama-era version.
By
almost any measure, Mr. Abbott, 59, has been a staunchly conservative
voice in Texas politics. But now he is struggling to steer the state
through one of its most tumultuous political moments in decades, as
Republican factions engage in open warfare.
Pro-business Republicans
clashed with social conservatives. The State House clashed with the
State Senate. The Texas Association of Business clashed with the Tea Party. White Republican lawmakers clashed with Hispanic Democratic legislators in the Capitol’s House chamber, cursing, shoving
and threatening one another. And 28 months into his term, Mr. Abbott is
facing a fundamental question: How conservative is conservative enough
for the governor of a state that defines the right in America as much as
California defines the left?
At
least part of Mr. Abbott’s problem appears to be that he has yet to
come up with an answer, allowing the cacophony of ideologies on the
right and far right to answer for him.
“Why
is he so hands-off?” asked Julie McCarty, the president of the
Northeast Tarrant Tea Party in the Fort Worth area. “Is that what his
dream was, to become governor of the greatest state in the nation so
that he could sit out on everything?”
Mr.
Abbott has faced challenges more daunting than reconciling feuding
Republicans. Almost 33 years ago, in July 1984, when he was a
26-year-old law school graduate studying for the bar in Houston, he took
a break to go for a jog with a friend. A large oak tree collapsed on
his back, leaving him paralyzed below the waist and in need of a
wheelchair for the rest of his life. He said that the accident had put
the demands of his job in its proper context.
“It
was actually just yesterday someone asked me, ‘How is it that you can
stay so calm with everything going on in the Capitol?’” Mr. Abbott said
during a recent interview. “And the answer is simple. And that is, when
you have your life broken in half and realize that you’re going to be
able to piece your life back together and overcome that, everything else
in life is pretty easy to deal with.”
Still, few regard the current political climate in Texas as easy.
Mr.
Abbott not only had trouble getting the Republicans who run Texas on
the same page, he also had a hard time just getting them together for
breakfast. Relations between two top Republicans — the arch-conservative
lieutenant governor, Dan Patrick, and the moderate House speaker, Joe
Straus III — soured to the point that the final series of weekly
breakfasts held by the most powerful officials in the state was quietly
canceled, a temporary fizzling-out of a decades-old tradition.
Internal
party disputes between establishment Republicans and social
conservatives are nothing new to Texas, and became more pronounced after
the Tea Party-backed rise of Senator Ted Cruz. But now, the hostility
and the stakes are significantly higher. The bitter public feud between
Mr. Patrick and Mr. Straus over Mr. Patrick’s push to pass bathroom
restrictions, like those in North Carolina, for transgender people led
to a legislative stalemate that put the operation of some state agencies in limbo.
Mr.
Abbott has been criticized from all sides — for both pushing Texas too
far to the far right and for not pushing it far enough, and for adopting
a less-is-more management style at a time of political turmoil.
Social
conservatives say Mr. Abbott has been disengaged in their battles,
including the effort to pass a bathroom bill. Moderate Republicans say
he has capitulated to the far right. Democrats and Hispanic groups say
the bill he signed banning so-called sanctuary cities was
unconstitutional and anti-Latino.
And he has been fighting a public perception that Mr. Patrick — the
firebrand conservative who was the Texas chairman of President Trump’s
campaign — calls the shots in Austin.
“I
don’t think Patrick’s in charge, but I think he has seized the
microphone,” said Harvey Kronberg, the publisher of The Quorum Report,
an online Texas political journal. “There’s no sense of coordination
coming out of the governor’s office, so it’s left a vacuum that we
haven’t seen since the days of Ann Richards, who became isolated for a
variety of reasons. Abbott has not learned how to exercise his power.”
In the coming days, Mr. Abbott faces a crucial test.
The
legislative session ended on Memorial Day, but Mr. Abbott will decide
whether to call lawmakers back for a special session, something only the
governor has the authority to do. Mr. Patrick has called on Mr. Abbott
to put a bathroom bill on the agenda. If Mr. Abbott does not, he will
upset Mr. Patrick and Mr. Patrick’s far-right supporters. If he does, he
will please social conservatives but play into the narrative that he
is, in effect, following the lead of Mr. Patrick.
It was Mr. Patrick, gavel in hand, who appeared on the February cover of Texas Monthly, which called him “the most influential person in Texas politics.”
Then,
in late April, Michael Quinn Sullivan, a conservative leader, sent an
email to supporters at 4:20 a.m., longing for the days of Mr. Perry and
writing “Where’s the Governor?” in the subject line. Weeks later, in The
Lubbock Avalanche-Journal,
Jay Leeson, a columnist and talk-radio co-host, quoted an unnamed
Republican lawmaker who said the state was being “run by Governor
Hodge,” a reference to Mr. Abbott’s chief of staff, Daniel Hodge.
Mr.
Abbott shows no sign of being either under pressure or under attack. In
the interview in his office on the second-floor of the Capitol, he was
at ease and engaging, and he expressed confidence in his steady hand at
the helm of the country’s second-most-populous state. The only
indication of turmoil came from the wall-size painting of the siege of
the Alamo to his right.
Asked
about the political chatter that he was bothered by the Texas Monthly
cover, Mr. Abbott replied, “With all due respect, with regard to any
media story, I could care less.” He added, “My focus is on the people of
Texas, and I could care less what any story writes.”
But whether he or Mr. Patrick is calling the shots, the constituency they are courting is all on the right.
“The
body politic has become more conservative,” Mr. Abbott said. “I have
been in politics as an elected official since 1992, so I’ve been
familiar with the body politic, with the people of the state of Texas at
the ground level, for decades now. And it’s very palpable that the
people in the state of Texas are more conservative than they were
decades ago when I first got elected, and the conservatives are more
organized.”
Mr. Abbott’s behind-the-scenes work ethic is the stuff of legend.
He
read every bill sent to his desk in the 2015 legislative session — all
1,300 of them. Last year, he suffered third-degree burns on his feet and
shin from a hot shower while vacationing in Wyoming, but he rushed to Dallas,
in pain and against the advice of doctors, after a gunman there had
killed five police officers at a demonstration. About 20 hours after
being burned in Wyoming, he attended a news conference in Dallas with
local officials.
But his tendency to pull away from the spotlight has worked against him, too. Mr. Abbott made a remark at a gun range
in Austin last month that some interpreted as a joke about shooting
reporters. In fact, he seemed to be indicating that his bullet-ridden
target was proof of his good aim, and that he would carry the target
around to show any skeptical reporters. But he never clarified what he
meant or commented about it publicly, allowing a misperception that he
is hostile to reporters to thrive on social media.
Another
perception that lingers in Austin is that Mr. Patrick plans to run
against Mr. Abbott in 2018. Mr. Patrick and those close to him have repeatedly denied the rumors, but the speculation persists that Mr. Patrick is more a rival to Mr. Abbott than a colleague.
Mr.
Abbott said he had a positive working relationship with Mr. Patrick and
shared many of his views, but dismissed any notion that Mr. Patrick was
setting the agenda in Texas.
“The
governor’s job is far bigger than just a legislative session,” Mr.
Abbott said. “Most of my time is devoted to being the C.E.O. of Texas,
not being involved in a legislative session.”
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