George P. Bush Announces Bid for Texas Attorney General

George P. Bush is lookin’ to move up in Texas politics….

The 45-year-old half-Mexican American politician, currently serving as Texas Land Commissioner, has announced that he’s running for attorney general in the Lone Star State, setting up a GOP showdown with one of the most high-profile Republican attorneys general in the country, Ken Paxton.

George P. Bush

“I am proud to announce I am a Republican candidate to be the next Texas attorney general,” he said before supporters in Austin.

Bush came out swinging in his campaign announcement, taking shots at Paxton, who is currently under indictment for securities fraud and, separately, facing an FBI investigation for abuse of office.

“Enough is enough, Ken. You’ve brought way too much scandal and too little integrity to this office,” Bush said. “It’s time to go.”

Bush — the son of former two-term Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, the nephew of former President George W. Bush and the grandson of the late former President George H.W. Bush — is running as a supporter of former President Donald Trump, despite the at-times blistering feud between Trump and the Bush family.

At a campaign kickoff event in downtown Austin, supporters praised Bush as the future of the Republican Party in Texas and highlighted his support of Trump as a key credential.

“I think we can all agree that President Trump was one of the best things to happen to this country,” Karen Newton, immediate past president of Texas Federation of Republican Women, said onstage as one of the introductory speakers before Bush.

Joacim Hernandez, vice chair of the Texas Young Republican Federation, argued Bush is uniquely positioned to unite the GOP. “He has a track record of support for President Trump and his America First policies, but he also has a track record of character and integrity.”

As land commissioner since 2015, Bush has long been viewed by political observers as a rising star in the GOP. He speaks Spanish and was involved in the founding of the political group Hispanic Republicans of Texas. He was also an officer in the Navy Reserves and a former businessman, with a law degree from the University of Texas School of Law.

Paxton, meanwhile, has been state attorney general since 2015 after serving in the Texas Legislature for more than a decade as both a state representative and state senator. He was highly active in filing federal lawsuits during the Barack Obama administration — most notably, he led a 20-state challenge against the Affordable Care Act — and has filed multiple suits against the Joe Biden administration over a range of issues from immigration to Medicaid.

A staunch ally of Trump, Paxton also led the lawsuit contesting election results in four states that Trump lost in November. The U.S. Supreme Court rejected the lawsuit.

Clouding Paxton’s run for reelection will be the FBI investigation and separate indictment. Paxton vehemently denies the charges and allegations.

Bush has made it clear he won’t be shy in going after Paxton’s legal issues.

“We have a web of corruption and lies that affect one of the highest offices in our land and it’s time for a change,” Bush said.

Bush will make South Texas — where Trump made heavy inroads in November — a key part of his strategy, and he plans to make his first official campaign trip to the Rio Grande Valley on Thursday.

Given his political connections and Paxton’s legal troubles, Bush is expected to raise significant cash for the race.

George P. Bush Debating a Run for State Office in Texas

It looks like George Prescott Bush may continue his family’s political legacy…

The 36-year-old half-Mexican American attorney says he’s close to settling on campaigning for the position of Texas Land Commissioner next year. He doesn’t believe he’ll make up his mind until he knows what Texas Governor Rick Perry, a fellow Republican, decides to do.

George P. Bush

“We for sure are running, the question is the office,” Bush told The Associated Press during the first interview about his political future since filing paperwork in November to seek elected office in Texas.

Bush’s father is former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, his grandfather is former President George H.W. Bush and his uncle is former President and Texas Governor George W. Bush. Perry has been governor since George W. left for the White House.

The land commissioner position has traditionally served as a steppingstone to higher office, but Bush said little about any plans to eventually become a national political force.

Instead, Bush spoke about how his past experience as an asset manager would help him manage the Permanent Schools Fund, which pays for public education and is managed by the land commissioner. He also said his perspective as an Afghanistan war veteran will help him use the post to become a leader in veterans’ affairs.

Bush said he would announce his final decision after the Texas Legislature adjourns in May but added that his choice will depend “where the governor’s thinking is.” Perry, who made an unsuccessful run for the Republican nomination in the race for president, remains popular in Texas, and he’s planning to reveal this summer if he’ll seek another term.

Some have speculated that Bush could challenge Perry for governor — and even if he doesn’t, what Perry decides will trigger political dominos falling.

Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson plans to run for lieutenant governor next year, creating a vacancy in his office. But Attorney General Greg Abbott, a Republican, may himself run for governor in 2014, meaning his post could be open too.

Bush suggested he’d be willing to wait his turn politically rather than immediately seeking top positions coveted by others in the state GOP.

“We’ve said that we want to be team players in the party, providing a younger, fresher vision for our values,” he said.

Bush speaks Spanish, and his mother Columba is from Mexico. Conservatives view George P. Bush on the ballot as a way to solidify support among Hispanics.

A Democrat hasn’t won statewide office in Texas since 1994, but Hispanics tend to vote overwhelmingly Democratic and accounted for two-thirds of Texas’ population growth over the last decade. Bush noted: “We’ll be majority Hispanic in six years.”

“I don’t necessarily agree with the idea that having a candidate of Hispanic origin, or someone who can speak Spanish, can automatically obtain these votes,” Bush said of Hispanics. “Having said that, it’s important tactically to have candidates that understand issues of the community.”

Bush said of trying to stand out among his famous political family, “It’s always been the thing of my grandmother to say, ‘Go out and make a name for yourself’ and that’s something that I’ve followed.”

“But who better to ask for advice on politics than two former presidents and a former governor?” he said. “They’re not involved in the day-to-day operations. They’re not involved in formulating my ideology. It’s more of an informal advice.”

Bush said his grandfather inspired him to join the military, and he was deployed to Afghanistan as an intelligence officer in the U.S. Naval Reserve. He said that before enlisting, he knew politics was in his blood but felt he was too inexperienced to run for office.

It wasn’t until the last few months, however, that “I felt it was time for my generation to step forward in state politics,” Bush said.

Bush now spends his time crisscrossing Texas and the country, raising money and meeting with supporters. He was in Austin on Monday and posed for pictures outside the state Capitol before disappearing into meetings with legislators.

Hinojosa Becomes Texas Democrats’ First Latino Chairman

Gilberto Hinojosa has made history in the Lone Star State…

The 59-year-old Mexican American politician has become the first Latino elected by the Texas Democrats to the state’s chairman’s position, a move indicating the party intends to play a bigger role in the Republican-dominated state.

Gilberto Hinojosa
Hinojosa,  a former judge, county party leader and member of the Democratic National Committee, was overwhelmingly chosen to lead the party for the next two years by delegates on the last day of the state convention in Houston. He’ll replace Boyd Richie, who has led the party since 2006.

The Mission-native takes over a party that hasn’t won a statewide election since 1994 and doesn’t control either chamber of the Texas Legislature. But the state’s evolving demographics favor Democrats, with non-Hispanic whites now making up less than 50 percent of the population. In the 2010 election, more than 85 percent of minorities voted Democratic.

“We as a party need to realize that there are more of us than there are of them,” said Hinojosa. “We believe that everyone in this great state deserves an equal chance … and we can only do that if we win elections.”

Fort Worth state Rep. Marc Veasey, currently in a runoff for a Democratic nomination to Congress, welcomed Hinojosa as someone who had experience working at the national level and at organizing the grassroots of the party.

“His election is historic and besides that, Gilberto is a good guy,” Veasey said. “He is a coalition builder; he gets along with a broad group of people.”

Hinojosa has promised to change the math on Texas elections. In the May 29 primary vote, twice as many Republicans cast ballots as Democrats, but, overall, less than 20 percent of registered voters showed up. Turnout among Texas Hispanics has never matched that in other states with significant Latino populations.

“There is no independent issue out there that has caused this to happen,” Hinojosa said. “They are not going to go out and vote for anybody if they are not engaged, no matter how dynamic of a leader you’ve got running … as a party we have to engage them and offer strong candidates.”

Hinojosa was the first in his family to attend college at the University of Texas-Pan American and graduated from Georgetown University Law School.