The candidates mostly aligned on policy but differed on how to wield the power of the AG’s office.
DALLAS — All four Republican candidates for Texas Attorney General appeared at a debate in Dallas on Tuesday, the same day early voting in the midterm primary election began.
The debate was sponsored by the Republican Attorney General’s Association and was moderated by a conservative broadcaster.
The candidates are all lawyers. Three of them are also lawmakers.
And Aaron Reitz said that’s a liability.
“This is a legal law enforcement job,” he said.
Reitz served as a deputy attorney general under current Attorney General Ken Paxton and spent three months at the Department of Justice under U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi.
He said he was the only person in the race who knew how to “fight the dark forces of the left through the justice system.”
But Congressman Chip Roy and State Sen. Joan Huffman both touted their prosecutorial experience, too.
Roy was an assistant attorney general under Paxton and chief of staff for Sen. Ted Cruz, while Huffman served as a prosecutor and judge in Harris County.
Paxton endorsed Reitz while Cruz endorsed Roy.
State. Sen. Mayes Middleton is the chairman of an oil and gas company.
The debate topics were very much in line with the issues the candidates focus on in their campaign ads.
Middleton said he was proud to have been labeled the “bathroom bigot” and said the lobby for transgender rights “is the most deranged and violent lobby you’ve seen in your life.”
They all claim the next attorney general needs to be focused on the growth of Islam in Texas.
“The Muslim Brotherhood has plan to ‘islamify’ Texas,” Roy said. “If you’re AG, you havethe power to follow money and I’ll go after organizations pushing sharia.”
They also said the office should be used to push out locally elected district attorneys who they don’t think are doing enough to prosecute crime and keep offenders behind bars.
But Huffman said one big difference she would make in the office would be rebuilding relationships that she said have been damaged.
“There’s been a loss of trust between the AG and local prosecutors and local law enforcement,” she said. “We need to rebuild that, and I can bring back that trust.”
Early voting in the midterm primary runs through Feb. 27. Election Day is Tuesday, March 3. Get a preview of the most contested races by reading our coverage here.
You can watch the full debate below