{"id":99530,"date":"2025-12-24T08:46:25","date_gmt":"2025-12-24T08:46:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/99530\/"},"modified":"2025-12-24T08:46:25","modified_gmt":"2025-12-24T08:46:25","slug":"texas-monthlys-bum-steer-of-the-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/99530\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas Monthly\u2019s Bum Steer of the Year"},"content":{"rendered":"

Editors\u2019 note: Read about our Bum Steer Awards<\/a> and more on Bum Steer of the Year contenders such as Ken Paxton<\/a>, the Dallas Mavericks<\/a>, Arch Manning<\/a>, Elon Musk<\/a>, our public universities<\/a>, and eight of our worst road hazards<\/a>. Check out the Best Things in Texas<\/a> for some of 2025\u2019s uplifting moments. <\/p>\n

Every new year feels bright and promising for a day or two, and for many people 2025 was no different. Though Americans had some disagreement about whether to feel delight or dread, the prospects for the people who run Texas\u2014our political class\u2014were as shiny as new silver. A Republican president would soon be taking over, and here at home, Governor Greg Abbott<\/a> and Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick<\/a> were at the height of their powers. A conservative Speaker of the Texas House, Dustin Burrows, would be replacing one<\/a> who hadn\u2019t gotten along with the rest of the party. And the Gulf of Mexico would be renamed<\/a>, patriotically. There was no better time to tackle the state\u2019s hard problems. Do Big Things. Do the Work.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This year the Legislature did One Big Thing (it allocated taxpayer
money to private schools<\/a> for the first time), a few unequivocally good things, and a few bad. The GOP has been in charge of Texas for two decades, so if Republican voters have a deep-seated grievance, it\u2019s the fault of Republicans. The party has to either pretend to address these grievances or shift blame to someone else. Or, ideally, both, while taking advantage of the great financial opportunities public service offers. It\u2019s a cycle of futility and misdirection that took root in Washington in a new way in this, the year of DOGE and the Epstein files. But the D.C. pols will never be able to beat the home team.<\/p>\n

The Texas economy was slammed by trade wars and the labor problems caused by immigration enforcement, but the Lege preferred to confront threats posed by \u201cfurries\u201d in public schools, debating an act<\/a> to ban the use of litter boxes in classrooms, part of a trend away from real-world problems and toward online-world problems. Lawmakers talked less to one another than ever before, preferring to talk about one another, especially on vertical video on social media. At times, they laughed in one another\u2019s faces\u2014and at state Representative Brian Harrison<\/a>, whose proclamation on the House floor that \u201cI\u2019m not just here to fight for Brian Harrison\u2019s interests\u201d was answered by mocking, disbelieving howls.<\/p>\n

\"politician\"politicianFrom left: Giovanni Capriglione, Dustin Burrows, Gina Ortiz Jones.Capriglione: Eddie Gaspar\/The Texas Tribune; Burrows and Ortiz: Eric Gay\/AP<\/p>\n

A stunning number of serious issues were pushed to the side while legislators spent time posting online. The West Texas measles outbreak was one source of concern for parents statewide\u2014and in New Mexico, which caught some of our viral overflow.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Yet the value of children\u2019s lives tripped up leaders again and again. When 27 girls were swept away in the Camp Mystic flooding<\/a>, the sad sacks and neurotics of the press started asking questions like \u201cWhy did this happen?\u201d and \u201cWho was responsible?\u201d These questions were put to Governor Abbott, the consoler in chief. Three years ago, Abbott famously said of the Uvalde school shooting\u2014nineteen dead children, after a bungled response run by his state security forces\u2014that it \u201ccould have been worse<\/a>.\u201d No surprise that he had been working on a version of this that sounded slightly more, uh, better.<\/p>\n

What he came up with this time was also pretty weird. \u201c\u200a\u2018Blame,\u2019\u200a\u201d he said, was \u201cthe word choice of losers<\/a>,\u201d which seemed uncomfortably to cast the parents of the dead girls, who have been pointing fingers<\/a>, as \u201closers.\u201d Texas was a football-loving state, he said. Uh-oh: He\u2019s trying to get folksy. \u201cLosing teams are the ones that try to point out who\u2019s to blame,\u201d he said. He wanted to run the state like a \u201cchampionship team,\u201d one that says, \u201c\u200a\u2018Don\u2019t worry about it, man, we got this .\u00a0.\u00a0. we\u2019re going to win this game.\u2019\u200a\u201d It could use a little work, but he\u2019ll have it polished by the next school shooting.<\/p>\n

Attorney General Ken Paxton had a rough year and a glorious one (see \u201cThe Top Ken List<\/a>\u201d). He appears to have a good chance to win the 2026 Republican primary for U.S. Senate while losing his marriage to state Senator Angela Paxton. All the while his office continues doing the state\u2019s work, gloriously.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In late 2024, Brent Webster, the first assistant attorney general, sent an email claiming that his colleague Judd Stone\u00a0harassed him by telling office mates that he fantasized about Webster\u2019s being \u201cviolently anally raped by a cylindrical asteroid.\u201d Then in June, Stone filed a lawsuit asserting that Webster had made the whole thing up. For the AG\u2019s office, this arguably represented a reduced level of internal dysfunction from prior years.<\/p>\n

\"politician\"politicianFrom left: Lina Hidalgo, Greg Abbott, Tony Gonzales.Hidalgo: Marcus Ingram\/Sipa USA\/AP; Abbott: Brandon Bell\/Getty; Gonzales: Tom Williams\/CQ Roll Call\/AP<\/p>\n

Paxton was hardly the only Texas politician embroiled in scandal. State Representative Giovanni Capriglione was dogged by a former mistress<\/a> with claims too bizarre<\/a> and outlandish to believe\u2014the most PG highlight is the allegation that he left a payoff for her behind a dumpster next to a Chuck E. Cheese in DFW. There was evidently enough to the accusations to get him to forgo a reelection campaign. Congressman Tony Gonzales faced the more troubling allegation that he had an affair with a staffer who fatally set herself on fire in September. (Gonzales denies that there was an affair.) When a potential scandal simply involved money\u2014as when the well-funded lobbying group Texans for Lawsuit Reform made Dan Patrick\u2019s son its CEO<\/a>\u2014it was a relative relief.<\/p>\n

This run-through has so far consisted of Republicans because they run the state. When Democrats go wrong, it matters much less. But the febrile atmosphere of 2025 extended to them too. Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo bizarrely urged Houston children to storm the mic at a city council meeting\u2014a kind of kiddie January 6, narrowly averted. Perhaps she was driven to distraction in part by Houston Mayor John Whitmire, who has fought Hidalgo with a fervor he normally reserves for bike lanes<\/a>. Soon-to-be mayor Gina Ortiz Jones, of San Antonio, pulled out her phone<\/a> in the middle of a debate that banned those devices, briefly derailing the proceedings.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Judge K\u2009P George, of Fort Bend County, facing his own corruption allegations, switched to the Republican Party<\/a>\u2014only to be told by the state GOP that he wasn\u2019t wanted. Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett, of Dallas, prompted furrowed brows when she labeled Abbott \u201cGovernor Hot Wheels<\/a>.\u201d But she had consistently eye-popping takes. In April she argued that the U.S. needed migrants, legal or illegal, because \u201cwe\u2019re done picking cotton<\/a>,\u201d she said, meaning Black people. \u201cYou can\u2019t pay us enough to find a plantation.\u201d It seemed to have escaped the congresswoman\u2019s notice that comparing undocumented farmworkers to enslaved people might be regarded as an argument against letting them stay here.\u00a0<\/p>\n

All this, laid out, has a numbing effect. So does marijuana, to which Dan Patrick is steadfastly opposed. But this opposition created one of the few highlights of the legislative session\u2014his videos<\/a> warning<\/a> about the dangers of reefer madness<\/a>. In May, Patrick appeared at a press conference behind a table with a bevy of colorful, happy-looking THC candies, snacks, and beverages. \u201cThey can poison you\u2014not just children, but adults,\u201d he said. Full of vim and vigor, he seemed to imagine himself as the Kevin Costner character in The Untouchables. \u201cDoes anyone want to try any of these?\u201d he asked, his tone implying that no sane person would. Half of the room probably had. He threw one bag at a journalist, who, though probably not high himself, failed to make the catch. No Texas politician has ever put so much effort into threatening his constituents with a good time.<\/p>\n

\"politician\"politicianFrom left: Brian Harrison, John Whitmire, Brent Webster.Harrison: Jay Janner\/The Austin American-Statesman\/Getty; Whitmire: Kirk Sides\/Houston Chronicle\/Getty; Webster: Tom Williams\/CQ-Roll Call, Inc\/Getty<\/p>\n

Texans have not developed the anti-incumbent sentiment you see in many other places, which means we have to look to other methods to discourage our worst-performing public servants. In the spring, one politician\u2014former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson\u2014was bitten by an ostrich<\/a> at a Texas wildlife park. It was the very least Johnson, who helped bring Great Britain to the brink of ruin, deserved, and the bird seems, judging from British press coverage, to have given a much-needed feeling of catharsis to Johnson\u2019s former constituents.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Yes, we know what you\u2019re thinking. The Capitol in Austin is already surrounded by a fence, and every lawmaker has to walk through the Capitol grounds occasionally. There should be ostriches everywhere.<\/p>\n

For now, we\u2019ll settle for noting that Texas\u2019s political class accomplished a Second Big Thing over the past twelve months. In so many ways, large and small, silly and sad, mundane and freakish, it embarrassed itself enough to be named our 2026 Bum Steer of the\u2014Oh, enough already. If we were forced to pick one? It\u2019s Ken Paxton. It\u2019s gotta be Ken Paxton.<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared in the January 2026 issue of\u00a0Texas Monthly\u00a0with the headline \u201cBum Steer of the Year.\u201d\u00a0Subscribe today<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Read Next<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Editors\u2019 note: Read about our Bum Steer Awards and more on Bum Steer of the Year contenders such…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":99531,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[45837,45838,45839,287,27,29,28],"class_list":{"0":"post-99530","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-texas","8":"tag-bum-steer-awards-2026","9":"tag-bum-steers","10":"tag-january-2026-issue","11":"tag-politics","12":"tag-texas","13":"tag-texas-headlines","14":"tag-texas-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99530","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=99530"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99530\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/99531"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}