Powerful State Senator Decided
Against Fight after Rep Warning

Capitol Inside
December 1, 2021

Republican State Senator Larry Taylor was gearing for a re-election bid on the Texas coast when he got the call that brought it to an abrupt halt on Tuesday. GOP State Rep. Mayes Middleton was coming after him in the March 1 primary election and prepared to spend whatever it might take to win the Senate District 11 seat in 2022.

Middleton would have a starting budget of $5 million for the Senate race with the ability to foot the bill for the campaign with personal wealth. According to unsubstantiated speculation inside the statehouse beltway, Middleton would or could have the powerhouse group the Texans for Lawsuit Reform in his corner for the SD 11 quest. Middleton would supposedly be portraying the powerful incumbent in a leftist light as a Republican in name only - or RINO - a label that could be lethal in a GOP primary election today.

A second-term representative from the unincorporated community of Wallisville, which happens to be located in Senate District 4, Middleton would expect to be a significant favorite as a consequence of the money alone. Taylor apparently didn't think Middleton was bluffing or making idle threats when he pulled the plug on a bid for a new term in the Texas Capitol's east wing before Middleton filed on Tuesday for the SD 11 race.

Instead of fighting to keep the seat, Taylor folded in the face of his first primary challenge in a re-election race in a district that he's represented almost 10 years. With Middleton as primary foe with a seemingly endless amount of family money, Taylor may have seen himself to be in a hopeless position as an old-guard establishment lawmaker in a GOP that's controlled now by the far right. A re-election race against the odd apparently wouldn't be worth the price and the trouble that it would bring to Taylor's life.

GOP State Rep. Kel Seliger of Amarillo can empathize - having cancelled his own re-election race in 2022 after Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick and top Senate allies crafted a redistricting bill that was designed to facilitate his ouster in round one next year.

The list of lawmakers who are heading for the exit includes some of the Texas House's most accomplished and least conservative Republicans such as State Reps. Dan Huberty of Humble, Chris Paddie of Marshall, Jim Murphy of Houston, John Frullo of Lubbock and Lyle Larson of San Antonio.

Huberty sponsored landmark school funding legislation as the Public Education Committee chairman in the House in 2019. Paddie - acting in his role as the current State Affairs Committee chair - sponsored a package of measures in regular session that aim to strengthen the Texas electric grid that failed in an epic winter storm in February. Murphy has doubled this year as the Higher Edcuation Committee chairman while leading the House Republican Caucus as well.

Taylor is the most accomplished of the departing Republicans as the Senate Public Education Committee chair during the past four regular sessions. Taylor served as the Senate author on the school finance reforms two years ago. Taylor had been the GOP Caucus chair in the House before he won a promotion to the upper chamber in 2012.

Middleton has - in sharp contrast - passed three pieces of legislation since he entered the House in 2019 after unseating House Republican Wayne Faircloth of Galveston the year before. But Middleton has been one of the most conservative legislators in Austin. His only claim to fame in the lawmaking arena was the part he had this year as the sponsor of a taxpayer-funded lobbying ban that the House rejected.

But after several years on the fringe, Middleton appears to be the epitome of the new GOP.

more to come ...