{"id":46628,"date":"2025-11-12T16:58:07","date_gmt":"2025-11-12T16:58:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/46628\/"},"modified":"2025-11-12T16:58:07","modified_gmt":"2025-11-12T16:58:07","slug":"bo-french-announces-run-for-texas-railroad-commission","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/46628\/","title":{"rendered":"Bo French announces run for Texas Railroad Commission"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\tAudio recording is automated for accessibility. Humans wrote and edited the story. See our <a href=\"https:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/about\/ethics\/#ai-policy\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">AI policy<\/a>, and give us <a href=\"https:\/\/airtable.com\/appFeleeKVUN0Iytx\/pagPG40gbkU0EfjIr\/form\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">feedback<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Tarrant County GOP Chair Bo French announced on Wednesday that he is running for a seat on the Texas Railroad Commission, the regulatory state agency that oversees Texas\u2019 oil and gas industry. <\/p>\n<p>French said he had resigned from his post leading the Republican Party in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/2024\/10\/11\/texas-tarrant-county-tim-ohare-far-right\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Texas\u2019 largest purple <\/a>county. In a statement announcing his statewide bid, he touted fundraising records set by the party during his tenure, President Donald Trump\u2019s victory in the county in November 2024 and his record of relentlessly fighting the \u201cradical left.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>French, an entrepreneur and political activist, has aligned himself with the rightmost faction of the party during his two-year stint chairing the Tarrant County GOP. He has drawn condemnation from fellow Republicans for social media posts in which he <a href=\"https:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/2024\/10\/31\/texas-tarrant-county-republican-chair-social-media-bo-french\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">referred to political opponents with slurs<\/a> for gay people and people with disabilities, and for asking followers to vote on whether Jews or Muslims pose \u201ca bigger threat to America.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>On Wednesday, he said serving on the Railroad Commission would be the \u201cbest way that I can defend Texas, stop the Islamic invasion and defeat the left.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTexas oil and gas made America great and literally fueled the fight for freedom across the world,\u201d French said. \u201cI\u2019m running for Railroad Commissioner to put American citizens, American interests, and American energy first.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Railroad Commission is made up of three members who are elected to serve six-year terms, staggered so that one seat is on the ballot every two years.<\/p>\n<p>French will face commission Chair <a href=\"https:\/\/directory.texastribune.org\/jim-wright\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Jim Wright<\/a> in the Republican primary. Wright\u2019s colleague, Commissioner <a href=\"https:\/\/directory.texastribune.org\/christi-craddick\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Christi Craddick<\/a>, is among three Republicans vying to be state comptroller in 2026. But she would remain in her seat if she loses because she was reelected to a six-year term last November.<\/p>\n<p>The third member of the commission, Republican <a href=\"https:\/\/directory.texastribune.org\/wayne-christian\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Wayne Christian<\/a>, was reelected in 2022 and will be up for a new term in the 2028 cycle.<\/p>\n<p>Whoever emerges victorious in the Republican primary might face Houston state Rep. <a href=\"https:\/\/directory.texastribune.org\/jon-e-rosenthal\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Jon Rosenthal<\/a>, the only Democrat to so far have declared his candidacy for the commission. No Democrat has won a statewide election in Texas since 1994.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Audio recording is automated for accessibility. Humans wrote and edited the story. See our AI policy, and give&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":46629,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[2137,288,8123,6084,27,29,28,8124],"class_list":["post-46628","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-2026-elections","tag-elections","tag-james-jim-wright","tag-oil-and-natural-gas","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news","tag-texas-railroad-commission"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46628","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=46628"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46628\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46629"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46628"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46628"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46628"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}