By Mark P. Jones
The Texas Railroad Commission has nothing to do with railroads, but everything to do with regulating the Lone Star State’s oil and natural gas industry, which currently produces 42% of U.S. crude oil and 26% of U.S. natural gas (along with 4% of the nation’s coal, an industry the Railroad Commission also regulates). The three Railroad Commission members are elected statewide for six-year terms in staggered elections, with one position up for election every two years.
This year incumbent Wayne Christian is running for re-election, and is facing four challengers in the Texas Republican primary on March 1. No Democrat has won a statewide race in Texas since 1994, and that losing streak is unlikely to be broken this year. And, even if the losing streak is broken, it won’t be in the Railroad Commissioner race, with the winner of the GOP Railroad Commissioner primary all but guaranteed to be victorious in November.
Christian has spent $664,000 on his campaign so far, and enjoys the explicit or implicit support of a majority of Republican political elites and organizations as well as of the oil and gas industry. In contrast, Christian’s four rivals (Tom Slocum Jr., Sarah Stogner, Dawayne Tipton and Marvin “Sarge” Summers, the latter of whom tragically died in an auto accident while campaigning in early February) have spent less than $50,000 combined and have received little in the way of support from Republican elites and groups, let alone from industry.
Faced with this uneven playing field, one candidate opted for an unconventional strategy to shine a spotlight on her campaign, a campaign that highlights her 13 years of experience as an oil and gas attorney and her pro-fossil fuel energy platform, but also her criticism of the oil and natural gas industry which she argues has “captured” the Texas Railroad Commission and fostered a culture of crony capitalism in the Texas energy sector.
On February 13, the day before early voting began in Texas, Sarah Stogner (who is not accepting campaign contributions) released a five-second video in which she rode a pumpjack wearing only panties and pasties. The video caused the San Antonio Express-News to retract its endorsement of Stogner, but also resulted in more than 150,000 views of the video and blanket statewide media coverage in addition to national, and even international, coverage. While much of the media coverage focused on the video, other coverage focused on Stogner’s criticism of Christian’s performance as railroad commissioner, Stogner’s argument that the Texas Railroad Commission is a “captured agency”, and Stogner’s successful career in the oil and gas industry.
The combination of the Railroad Commission contest being a down-ballot race that most GOP primary voters are not following closely and the presence of five candidates on the Republican ballot makes it likely that no candidate will win more than 50% of the vote on March 1, and hence that the top two vote-getters on Tuesday will face-off in a May 24 runoff. While Christian is a virtual lock to be in the runoff, Stogner arguably has the best chance among the challengers to join him on the May ballot. And, if Stogner does make it to the runoff, that five-second video, and the attention it brought her, will have had quite a bit to do with it.
Mark P. Jones is the Joseph D. Jamail Chair in Latin American Studies and the Director of the Center for Energy Studies’ Argentina Program at Rice University’s James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy.
