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Texas Sen. Sarah Eckhardt, D-Austin, asks questions about the proposed redistricting map of Sen. Phil King, R-Weatherford, as the Texas Senate prepares to take a vote on the redistricting bill passed by the Texas House of Representatives, Aug. 22, 2025.<\/p>\n
Sara Diggins\/Austin American-Statesman<\/p>\n
Dealing with the Texas budget is like wrangling vipers. The slithery items are always moving around, you never really know what\u2019s going on, and if you poke at the wrong place you can expect to feel a sudden sharp pain \u2014 perhaps from an aggrieved special interest lobbyist or some other reptilian creature indigenous to the State Capitol.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
But over her career as a county judge and state senator, Sarah Eckhardt, 62, hasn\u2019t just wrestled with vipers, she\u2019s eaten them.<\/p>\n
For Comptroller of Public Accounts: Sarah Eckhardt<\/p>\n
Sarah Eckhardt \u2605\u2605\u2605\u2605 \u2014 With experience in county government and the state Senate, this scion of a Democratic political family wants to help the Legislature tackle tax loopholes and runaway subsidies for special interests.<\/p>\n
Don Huffines \u2605\u2605 \u2014 He was appointed by Gov. Abbott to this position in July, and his short tenure has been stained by chaos, scandal and conspiracy theories. Texans deserve a comptroller who treats taxpayer dollars with respect.<\/p>\n
\u201cTastes like chicken,\u201d she told us.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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That\u2019s because she’d regularly join her daddy, longtime Houston representative and congressman Bob Eckhardt, and his friends on long trail rides through the Piney Woods. They\u2019d use makeshift spears to jab any rattlesnakes that might cross their path and, at the end of the ride, grill them for dinner.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Which is a long way of saying that Sen. Sarah Eckhardt knows a great deal about what it means to be a Texan. If you want to hear what politics used to sound like in our state, before online influencers and self-appointed pundits started setting the agenda, listen to her speak \u2014 and not just because she has one of the best homegrown wits since Ann Richards. It\u2019s because you\u2019ll hear that she cares about fiscal responsibility, and fundamentally understands how our state and local tax system was originally designed to work. When she talks about keeping government efficient, it\u2019s not just talk: As county judge of Travis County, she regularly cut property tax rates and kept a skinflint attitude about spending taxpayer dollars.\u00a0<\/p>\n
To be blunt: She\u2019s the exact sort of person Texans should want in the office of state comptroller.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Rumpled but happy, United States Representative Bob\u00a0Eckhart hugs his daughter Sarah after winning his sixth straight term to the House of Representatives.<\/p>\n
Blair Pittman\/Houston Chronicle<\/p>\n
The position oversees state finances, publishing budget projections and running audits. Basically, the comptroller serves as the CFO of Texas. The office doesn\u2019t have much authority to change the budgets, but it sure can highlight important issues and direct legislators\u2019 attention.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Meeting with the editorial board, Eckhardt spoke with a common-sense attitude about the office, referencing the work of past comptrollers such as Bob Bullock, John Sharp and, notably, Republican Glenn Hegar, who stepped down last year to become president of Texas A&M.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cHegar was quiet but highly capable,\u201d she said. \u201cMy only objection to Hager was that he didn’t put in plain English what he was trying to advise.\u201d<\/p>\n
She even carried around one of his reports that highlighted how cutouts and loopholes mean that most sales in our state actually aren\u2019t being taxed.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cSo what he’s saying is we are exempting more than we’re collecting,\u201d she told us.\u00a0<\/p>\n
For example, think of that $3.2 billion giveaway to data centers<\/a> over the next two years, thanks to a special sales tax break. Now imagine all of the other special tax treats lawmakers have granted for the powerful and politically connected over the years. Those gifts inherently shift\u00a0 the burden onto everyday Texans.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Where Hegar offered no formal recommendation, Eckhardt would encourage the Legislature to close those loopholes, broaden the tax base and use the revenue to lower property taxes.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThat the best way to reduce property taxes is for the state to clean up their damn act on the taxes that they collect,\u201d she said. \u201cStop giving away the store to businesses that don’t need subsidies.\u201d<\/p>\n Except for the casual cursing, it\u2019s reminiscent of Mitt Romney\u2019s presidential tax plan<\/a>. How\u2019s that for fiscal responsibility?<\/p>\n Eckhardt counts private school vouchers among those runaway subsidies. She points out that the cost is projected to balloon from $1 billion to $4 billion, and she projects it could even reach $7 billion and cover 80% of all private school education in the state.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWhich sounds a lot like what happened with the runaway subsidy for data centers,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n As comptroller she would want to provide real oversight of the voucher program and make sure it actually delivers quality education, rather than fueling low-quality schools and scammers.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThere’s a school in my Senate district that is an AI-only school that promises two hours a day with basically a chatbot teacher,\u201d she says. You can bet that if she\u2019s comptroller, Texans will hear more about that.<\/p>\n In contrast, Eckhardt\u2019s Republican opponent calls for a spend-baby-spend approach to private school subsidies. <\/a>\u00a0Don Huffines, a 68-year-old real estate mogul, wants to double the amount of taxpayer funds we pour into those vouchers.\u00a0<\/p>\n Huffines, whom Gov. Greg Abbott appointed comptroller in July, chose not to talk with the editorial board as we screened candidates. But\u00a0 we don\u2019t have to guess what he\u2019d do if elected.<\/p>\n Former Senator Donald Huffines, a former Republican member of the Texas Senate, speaks to the crowd during a legislative priorities rally held by the Republican Party of Texas at the Texas State Capitol on Saturday, January 9, 2021 in Austin, Tx., U.S.<\/p>\n Matthew Busch, Contributor \/ For The San Antonio Express-News<\/p>\n The Texas comptroller\u2019s office has 3,000 employees, mostly non-political people who do unsexy but important work like collecting taxes and managing the state payroll. During Huffines\u2019 short tenure as boss, the former state senator imposed DOGE-style hack-and-slash layoffs that created chaos but have done little to save money.\u00a0 He lost hundreds of years of institutional knowledge and experience at the agency, as the Texas Tribune<\/a> put it, and instead installed a 25-year-old<\/a> as his top deputy in charge.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n After allegedly firing people because they weren\u2019t sufficiently Christian, he faces lawsuit threats<\/a>.<\/p>\n And he has announced plans to use his office to investigate fluoride<\/a> in the state water supply.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n