{"id":377069,"date":"2026-07-17T18:21:14","date_gmt":"2026-07-17T18:21:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/377069\/"},"modified":"2026-07-17T18:21:14","modified_gmt":"2026-07-17T18:21:14","slug":"abbott-appoints-senior-aide-as-new-texas-secretary-of-state","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/377069\/","title":{"rendered":"Abbott appoints senior aide as new Texas secretary of state"},"content":{"rendered":"

This story was first published by The Texas Tribune<\/a>,<\/a> a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans \u2014 and engages with them \u2014 about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.<\/p>\n

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for Votebeat Texas\u2019 free newsletter here.<\/a><\/p>\n

Robert Howden, a senior adviser to Gov. Greg Abbott<\/a>, will be Texas\u2019 interim secretary of state, Abbott announced Friday. Howden is a longtime Texas politico who has worked for GOP governors going back to Bill Clements, serving as Abbott\u2019s legislative director since 2024.<\/p>\n

Howden is replacing Jane Nelson<\/a>, who left her post Friday as Texas\u2019 top election official after three and a half years. Nelson\u2019s resignation, announced in early June, set off a flurry of speculation<\/a> about why she was leaving and who would replace her ahead of the contentious midterm elections in November.<\/p>\n

Howden will need to be confirmed by the Texas Senate when the Legislature returns in January, but can serve until then without legislative approval. Nelson\u2019s three immediate predecessors in the role resigned before the Senate got a chance to approve them.<\/p>\n

\u201cRobert Howden has served Texas with distinction in four Republican governors\u2019 administrations,\u201d Abbott said in a statement. \u201cHis experience in the legislative process and extensive public service have prepared him to protect the integrity of Texas elections and represent our state with strength on the global stage.\u201d<\/p>\n

How Texas safeguards elections \u2014 and what still poses a threat<\/p>\n

Get the latest reporting on voting technology, misinformation, the push for hand-counting ballots, and more in Votebeat Texas’ free newsletter, delivered twice a month.<\/p>\n

Nelson has not commented on her departure, other than to say she worked hard \u201cto ensure that voting in Texas is secure, accessible, and fair.\u201d Abbott praised her as an \u201cextraordinary\u201d secretary of state.<\/p>\n

Nelson was the longest-serving Republican woman in the Texas Senate and the first woman to lead the Senate Finance Committee. She presided over seven statewide elections and disbursed millions in grants to county election officials, according to a press release from her office.<\/p>\n

But she clashed with GOP leadership toward the end of her tenure over closing the primaries, which would require voters to register with a specific party to vote in the primary. Last year, the Texas GOP filed a lawsuit arguing that it had the legal right to close its primaries. Attorney General Ken Paxton<\/a> joined the party\u2019s suit rather than defending Texas law, a move Nelson called \u201cbrazen and misguided.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nelson said in a filing<\/a> that Paxton\u2019s office gave her less than an hour\u2019s notice about its plans, and said it was up to the Legislature, not the courts, to change the law. Abbott, who has joined the call for closing the primaries, agreed, telling Texas Scorecard that lawmakers \u201ccan and should be more responsive to Republicans than a judge may be.\u201d<\/p>\n

As chief elections officer for a state whose leaders are heavily focused on election integrity and the threat of voter fraud, Howden will have more to manage than just the November elections. Nelson often faced competing demands from the Trump Justice Department, state leaders, county election officials, and voting rights groups.<\/p>\n

During her tenure, Texas was one of just 15 states that gave the U.S. Department of Justice access to its full voter roll, including identifying information about 18 million registered voters. The state also began using a federal database called Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, or SAVE, last year to verify voters\u2019 citizenship, prompting at least two lawsuits by voting rights groups.<\/p>\n

Nelson raised concerns about that system in an April letter to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Votebeat reported Wednesday<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Kristin Miles, the Bastrop County elections administrator and president of the Texas Association of County Election Officials, said in a statement that Howden was assuming a position \u201cwhich carries the tremendous responsibility of fostering trust in Texas\u2019 election system.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt will be critical for Secretary Howden to help maintain that trust through the upcoming November general election in Texas, and we stand ready to be a resource and a partner to the new secretary from day one,\u201d Miles said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This story was first published by The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans \u2014…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":377070,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[133292,133291,27,29,28,3602,79542,19681],"class_list":["post-377069","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-courtesy-image","tag-robert-howden","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news","tag-texas-tribune","tag-tt","tag-votebeat"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377069","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=377069"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377069\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/377070"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=377069"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=377069"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=377069"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}