On Sunday, Bo French, the Republican candidate for Texas Railroad Commissioner, posted a series of xenophobic social media posts taking aim at students of color celebrating at the University of Texas football game, and prompting a wave of intra-party rebuke just weeks before the November election.<\/p>\n
The morning after the Texas Longhorns pulled off a major comeback to upset Ohio State, French shared a photo of students of South Asian descent cheering in burnt orange gears from the stands. The former Tarrant County GOP chair, who has called for<\/a> the deportation of 100 million people which would include U.S. citizens, said<\/a> the scene shows \u201chow many Americans have been displaced by foreigners.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI heard UT graduation this year looked like this,\u201d French said in another post<\/a> with a photo of the students. \u201cI didn\u2019t believe it. The problem is now obviously far worse than anyone imagined.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Several of the commenters on his post noted that he was calling students \u201cforeigners\u201d without any information about their status and based solely on the color of their skin.<\/p>\n U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, who lost his reelection primary bid to Attorney General Ken Paxton in May, quickly blasted French\u2019s comment and called on others to do the same.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThis is the Republican nominee for statewide office,\u201d Cornyn said in his post<\/a>. \u201cAre other Republican elected officials going to condemn the intolerance and racism, or look the other way while it becomes normalized.\u00a0 This is how great political parties self-destruct. Sad.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n State Rep. Jon Rosenthal, a Houston Democrat who is running against French, thanked the senator for speaking out.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s truly unfortunate that so many elected \u2018leaders\u2019 will just silently let this pass,\u201d Rosenthal added<\/a>.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Republican Texas House Speaker Dustin Burrows as well as several GOP state representatives have called on French to delete his post.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cYou can oppose immigration policy without demeaning people because of their race or ethnicity \u2014 this post has crossed the line,\u201d Burrows said<\/a>.<\/p>\n Former House Speaker Dade Phelan has even gone further, calling<\/a> French \u201cunfit for office.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThis is racist. It is wrong. And I condemn it without reservation,\u201d Rep. Jared Patterson, said in a post. \u201cAnd let\u2019s be clear: the Texas Railroad Commission regulates our oil and gas industry. It does not set federal immigration policy. Texans deserve Railroad Commissioners focused on the responsibilities of that office\u2014not using a statewide campaign as a platform for racial division.<\/p>\n This was not the first time that elected Texas Republican officials have criticized French for his racist remarks.\u00a0<\/p>\n Several state leaders including Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick called on<\/a> him to resign from his role as the Tarrant County chair last year, after French published a social media poll asking whether Jews or Muslims were a bigger threat to America.\u00a0<\/p>\n Patrick then endorsed French\u2019s rival in the Republican primary for the Texas Railroad Commissioner race earlier this year. But the lieutenant governor reportedly changed his stance<\/a>, after French won the primary runoff to be the GOP nominee.\u00a0<\/p>\n Gov. Greg Abbott has also supported<\/a> French in the statewide race, despite previously warning during the primary election that he would \u201cwreck the miracle\u201d of Texas\u2019 oil and gas production.\u00a0<\/p>\n The two leaders\u2019 offices did not immediately respond to comment requests about whether they would condemn French\u2019s new posts. Cornyn\u2019s office also did not immediately respond to questions, including whether he would back Rosenthal in the Texas Railroad Commissioner race.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Meanwhile, French doubled down in response to Cornyn\u2019s criticism and called him a RINO, or Republican in name only, who has cheered for foreign nationals over American citizens.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cHe and the other America Last losers are mad that Texas Republicans are starting to put America First,\u201d he said in a post<\/a>. His campaign did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n Other Texas Republicans, like former Texas GOP chair Matt Rinaldi as well as state Rep. Andy Hopper, came to French\u2019s defense, mostly in the form of attacking Cornyn.<\/p>\n Hopper derided<\/a> Cornyn as a \u201csmug globalist\u201d who lost his primary election by 28 points.<\/p>\n Across the aisle,, State Rep. James Talarico, an Austin Democrat who is running against Paxton for the U.S. Senate seat, acknowledged Cornyn\u2019s comment before pushing his rival for a response.<\/p>\n \u201cWill you condemn this blatant racism or will you cower to extremists?\u201d Talarico said in a post on X<\/a> directed at Paxton, whose campaign did not immediately respond to a comment request.\u00a0<\/p>\n The attorney general has supported French\u2019s campaign, saying<\/a> that he will be \u201ca great Railroad Commissioner.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n The University of Texas at Austin didn\u2019t immediately respond to a request for comment.\u00a0Disclosure: The University of Texas at Austin has been a major financial supporter of The Texas Tribune. The Texas Tribune is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in our journalism. Find a complete list of them and more information about our financial and disclosure policies\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On Sunday, Bo French, the Republican candidate for Texas Railroad Commissioner, posted a series of xenophobic social media…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":434922,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133,1864,2875,1865,451,1724,53771,3309,26901,127810,287,2424,122,293],"class_list":["post-434921","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news","tag-dan-patrick","tag-demographics","tag-dustin-burrows","tag-energy","tag-immigration","tag-jeff-leach","tag-john-cornyn","tag-jon-rosenthal","tag-lacey-hull","tag-politics","tag-republicans","tag-tarrant-county","tag-texas-legislature"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434921","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=434921"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434921\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/434922"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=434921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=434921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=434921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}