ODESSA — Bo French, the Republican nominee for Texas Railroad Commissioner in the November midterm election, on Tuesday called the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to uphold birthright citizenship “traitorous,” saying Texas should not recognize babies born to undocumented parents as citizens.
“The correct response to the traitorous decision today on anchor babies is nullification,” French wrote on X. “Texas can just do things and we should. Texas is sovereign. If I have anything to say about it, Texas will not recognize them as citizens.”
French’s comments follow a landmark ruling on Tuesday by the Supreme Court justices to reject President Donald Trump’s bid to end the 170-year-old constitutional right that affords American citizenship to newborns whose parents are immigrants. The justices voted 6-3.
The Railroad Commission, a century-old agency governing the state’s enormous oil and gas industry, has no bearing on immigration issues, nor can the three-panel commissioners make decisions that affect a person’s immigration status — an issue French regularly weighs in on.
The responsibilities of the agency, in turn, have not been the focal point of French’s campaign for statewide office. Since announcing his bid last November, French has been a regular, incendiary commentator on the country’s immigration and LGBTQ+ policies, making frequent appearances on podcasts hosted by right-wing podcasters such as Steve Bannon and Jack Posobiec.
He has called LGBTQ+ people slurs, said Texas should more openly embrace Islamophobia, and that the U.S. should deport 100 million people, nearly a third of the country’s population.
After winning the primary in a runoff, in which he narrowly ousted incumbent Jim Wright, French said maintaining that was the point. He said such issues resonated with voters, not the Railroad Commission itself.
“I ran a campaign because I had to win a Republican primary,” he told Posobiec. “Talking about the Islamification of Texas, talking about DEI, talking about LGBTQ issues … I think my victory is a testament to the grassroots folks in Texas who are tired of electing people who aren’t fighting for them on any of these issues.”
His remarks have drawn the ire of members of his own party, including Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who have publicly decried French — Abbott said he would wreck the miracle that is the oil and gas industry — and endorsed his primary opponent during primary season.
That changed after French won the primary, and both Abbott and Patrick said they’d support him in November. On X, French said he’d had “a very nice call” with Patrick, who has previously called on French to step down as Tarrant County GOP chair after French posted a social media poll asking whether Jews or Muslims were a bigger threat to America.
French faces state Rep. Jon Rosenthal, a Democrat and career oil field engineer who faces an uphill battle of defeating a GOP-dominated commission. It has been decades since a Democrat was elected to the Railroad Commission. Rosenthal has told the Texas Tribune his campaign would bring issues the Railroad Commission regulates to the forefront of his campaign.
“My opponent is going on an unhinged rant, encouraging sedition, treason, and racism,” Rosenthal said in a statement, adding that voters “have no idea what his plan is”
French’s campaign has been bankrolled by well-known billionaires, including Tim Dunn and Farris Wilks, who have poured their gargantuan wealth to sway Texas elections in the past and push the state further to the right.
“This tactic that … French’s campaign is using is basically to distract and to rile up a voter based on issues that are of absolutely no importance to the Railroad Commission, just so that the (oil and gas) industry can have its favorite candidate in office,” said Virginia Palacios, executive director at Commission Shift Action, a nonprofit and offshoot of the oil and gas watchdog group.
Palacios said voters should question candidates’ stances on matters the Railroad Commission has authority over, such as waste pit rules, which determine how oil companies manage and handle their waste. Such rules, if robust, could prevent harm to human health, she said.
“It’s important for voters to rise above rhetoric and really pay attention to what these agencies and these candidates will be responsible for in their daily duties because the Railroad Commission, in particular, is one of the most important offices in the state, if not the country,” Palacios said. “And we need to have somebody in that role who’s looking out for the general public.”
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