I have been covering the Texas Governor’s race and issues in Texas that voters are concerned about. This year, Texans cannot vote straight ticket. They have to go down the ballot and vote for candidates individually . There are lots of seats up for grabs.
One of which is the Texas Land Commissioner. The General Land Commission is the oldest agency in the state of Texas. You might not know much about the Land Commissioner position, or knew that one existed, but it is a very important position for the state.
The seat is up for grabs as the current Land Commissioner, George P. Bush, stepped down to run an unsuccessful campaign for Attorney General.
There are two interesting candidates for the position, and one of them is Brown County’s state senator.
Dr. Dawn Buckingham is the Republican candidate for Texas Land Commissioner. She has served as a state senator of Texas District 24, which houses Brownwood, Temple, and Fredricksburg, since 2016. Buckingham is also a former Lake Travis school board member and former Vice Chair of the State Board of Educators Certification.
Endorsed by Donald Trump and high-profile GOP Texan leaders, Buckingham has been running a campaign centered on conservative values of Texas energy, border security, education, law enforcement, and veteran support. Additionally, her campaign promises to increase coastline protections that will protect lives and property, and drive down the cost of living and working on the coast.
Buckingham and her opponent do not differ much in responding to natural disasters. Both of them want to have a quick response in funding and aid to communities impacted by natural disasters. On her website, she aims to coastal communities impacted by hurricanes.
Buckingham draws on her experience as a state senator for Texas voters. “As a member of the Texas Senate, I’ve worked to lower taxes and cut job-killing regulations, keeping more money in the pockets of Texas families, and creating more jobs than any state in the nation,” says Buckingham on her website.
She also pulls in her job history in the senate increasing resources for law enforcement and border patrol and increasing criminal penalties for human trafficking. How the border plays into Texas Land Commissioner, Buckingham says that the General Land Office plays a huge part in “where the border can be built on state lands.”
On the Alamo, Buckingham is big on not wanting anything to happen that will reimage Texas history. She also claims to have led the effort to keep the Alamo’s Cenotaph–the monument that commemorates those who fought in the Alamo–in its current location in front, rather than moving it elsewhere.
Buckingham supports the oil and gas industry to better fund jobs, schools, and the power grid. The GLO manages state lands and Buckingham believes that drilling is Texas economy boosting key. “Democrats like my opponent want to hijack the General Land Office and use it to implement their own radical agenda for Texas. By bringing Biden’s job-killing “Green New Deal” regulations to Texas and working to permanently shut down oil and natural gas drilling, they’ll eliminate tens of thousands of high-paying energy jobs, raise the cost of everything from electricity to groceries, and destroy a major source of funding for our public schools,” says Buckingham’s website.
As a candidate for Land Commissioner, Buckingham believes that the oil and gas industry, the best in the United States, serves to greatly fund the Permanent School fund, which the Land Commissioner is in charge of increasing its funding. “The majority of the $1 billion in revenue for Texas public schools from the Permanent School Fund is from oil and gas leases,” says Buckingham’s website
On Veterans, Buckingham has been a supporter of increased benefits, better programs, and more services available.
Jay Kleberg is the Democratic Candidate for Texas Land Commissioner. He is part of the family that runs King Ranch and the namesake of Kleberg County.
Kleberg has many titles in the fields of water and land conservation, agriculture, and business, including, but not limited to:
- Former Associate Director of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Foundation
- Director of the Texas Lyceum, a non-partisan civic engagement group
- Former Board Chair of Texas Water Trade, a non-profit water conservation organization
- Advisory Board Member of the University of Texas at Austin McCombs School of Business
- Many other former board positions within different organizations focused on land, education, and business.
This is the experience Kleberg draws on to support his claim that he should be Texas Land Commissioner. “Growing up in an agricultural community taught me the value of hard work and getting the job done right. It also gave me a deep respect for Texas, the land, and people from all walks of life. As I got older, I quickly realized that our freedoms do not negate our responsibility to one another. We must take the initiative and ensure that our great state will thrive for generations,” said Kleberg’s website.
Kleberg runs a campaign focused on responsibly managing public lands and reducing the impact of natural disasters. Furthermore, Kleberg is wanting to use the position to reduce climate change and increase the Permanent School Fund.
Kleberg outlines briefly his plans in the different areas that Land Commissioner oversees. Kleberg informs voters he wants to reduce CO2 emissions in the air through several factors such as storing CO2 emissions. Kleberg also argues that not only this will be good for the environment, but also education.
“If elected, I would ensure that we take advantage of the 45Q federal tax credit, which would allow the state to generate revenue for public schools by safely and permanently storing 700 years’ worth of industrial CO2 emissions in our submerged lands off the Texas coast,” said Kleberg on his website.
“We should also focus on producing energy on public lands with the environment in mind––preventing flaring, reducing venting, and incentivizing the recycling and reuse of produced water on new oil and gas leases.”
Kleberg wants to expand Texas’ energy portfolio of the Permanent School fund by diversifying energy with renewables. The Democrat candidate also wants to base coastal protection plans on climate change in mind.
For disaster relief, the candidate goes after the current General Land Office administration for not providing relief to Houston and Harris county after Hurricane Harvey. Kleberg states he will focus on getting funding to communities impacted by natural disasters in a matter of months, and work with “federal partners to prepare for natural disasters ensuring we are funded, staffed, and ready for whatever disaster is to come,” said Kleberg.
Kleberg also wants to lower interest rates for veterans, and support veterans under his administration. Kleberg has the plan to increase two more veterans cemeteries, one in east texas and the other in the panhandle, and to expand veteran homes and assisted living centers.