This election season, Don Huffines promised to end woke ideology. Christi Craddick vowed to “hold the line” on keeping boys out of girls’ sports in Texas. And Kelly Hancock has touted his support for President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.
So one would be forgiven for not realizing the three Republicans are running to be the Texas comptroller — the state’s top accountant, whose main responsibilities include collecting taxes, writing checks and predicting the state’s revenue so the Legislature can decide how to spend it.
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“This is an office that is boring,” said Jon Taylor, a political science professor at the University of Texas at San Antonio. “It is supposed to be more administrative, more low-key.”
The state agency has received increased attention since the Legislature last year added a brand new responsibility beyond its fiscal ones: implementing a new $1 billion program for parents to send their children to private schools using publicly funded vouchers.
Historically an apolitical office, the GOP primary for the open seat is a hotly competitive and expensive race colored by the same culture war issue that have animated more high-profile races up and down the ballot. The attention on those issues outside the office’s main purview, reflects what candidates think will resonate with Texas Republican voters who have elected an increasingly conservative crop of state leaders in recent years. But it also opens a window into how whoever wins the contest might try to change the office and its traditional responsibilities should they occupy it.
Ultimately, decisions about how Texas spends money, funds state agencies and cuts budgets or staff are made by the Legislature.
But Hancock, the acting controller, told The Texas Tribune he wants the agency to have more audit powers to probe fraud and waste, and keep local municipalities — like cities and school districts — in check with state laws.
All three contenders have vowed to use the agency in a similar fashion, embracing the GOP electorate’s zeal for tackling government waste in the vein of Elon Musk’s federal DOGE effort.
They’ve imbued their talk about dollars and cents with promises to go after a variety of social conservatives’ worries like terrorist organizations, illegal immigrants and Muslims who they claim are imperiling the future of Texas.
In a recent post, Huffines, a former state senator, encouraged people to vote for him “if you want a comptroller who will eliminate woke DEI from government.” He told the Tribune that he has long fought for these values and that his opponents “are playing catch up.”
“I was on the front lines of this fight when it was difficult,” said Huffines, whose unsuccessful gubernatorial bid for the Republican nomination in 2022 shifted the race to the right.
Hancock, as acting comptroller, has claimed victory for already ending DEI in some state contracts after removing women and minorities from a program that aims to boost businesses owned by economically disadvantaged groups.
“We’ve delivered results at the speed of business,” Hancock said in a statement. “Texans deserve a Comptroller who is already doing the job, understands the responsibility of the office, and has proven they can deliver results.”
Meanwhile, Craddick, a railroad commissioner, made a recent pitch that Texans “shouldn’t have to check the fine print to make sure their tax dollars aren’t funding radical ideology.”
“Whether it’s gender theory in schools or climate alarmism disguised as infrastructure, I’ll say it plainly: I won’t let Texas taxpayers bankroll nonsense,” Craddick said in the social media post.
Craddick’s campaign said she was not available for an interview. In one social media post, she defended campaigning on culture war issues and doubled down.
“I’ll say it again just so I’m clear: boys don’t belong in girls’ sports. I’m also pro-life, pro-2A, anti-DEI, and strongly support [President Trump’s] efforts to deport those who are here illegally,” Craddick wrote. “As Comptroller, I will do everything within my power to uphold these values.”
Despite lofty promises to DOGE Texas, the comptroller’s office has little authority to investigate waste, in part by design through almost three decades of political realignment amid Republican domination of state government.
In the 1990s, former Comptroller John Sharp, a Democrat, was lauded nationally for the state’s performance review program that uncovered state government waste and abuse and led to state lawmakers adopting dozens of recommendations to cut costs and inefficiencies.
In 2003, however, the Legislature stripped the comptroller’s office of the performance review authority after Sharp’s successor, a Republican, began clashing with then-Gov. Rick Perry. The authority was given to the Legislative Budget Board, made up of leaders from the House and Senate.
The comptroller seat is open for the first time in more than a decade, after former Comptroller Glenn Hegar left the post last year to become the next chancellor of the Texas A&M University System.
Gov. Greg Abbott appointed Hancock, a former state senator from North Richland Hills, to finish the remainder of the tenure. The winner of the Republican primary will face the winner of the Democratic primary this November, though a Democrat hasn’t won a statewide office in more than three decades.
Hegar, a former state senator, spent his first two terms largely avoiding partisan issues. But that changed as he campaigned for his third term, when the state’s then-CFO started reaching for new tools in his office to try to punish left-leaning county leaders and bat down progressive policies.
In 2022, he threatened to block Harris County’s revenue streams after accusing officials of shrinking the constables’ budget in what he described as an apparent “defund the police” effort. That year he also banned the state from doing business with financial firms with environmental policies that didn’t support the oil and gas industry.
Cal Jillson, a political science professor at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, said the campaigns in the comptroller election aren’t reflective of the day-to-day responsibilities of the office. To be sure, the office conducts comprehensive research and analysis on a variety of measures, which observers note a new leader could focus on partisan issues.
“No matter what the office is you’re running for, you make the argument that you are dependable and solid,” Jillson said. “You are a fighter on these social issues like DEI, transgender rights, Islam, Sharia Law, which have nothing to do with what you’re going to do if you’re elected comptroller except that you can use your megaphone.”
Disclosure: Southern Methodist University, Texas A&M University System and University of Texas at San Antonio have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete list of them here.