The Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts is an idiosyncratic statewide office—a result of the state constitution’s intentionally decentralized executive branch. It’s part budget analyst, part tax collector, part financial auditor, and, increasingly so, part administrator of a grab bag of conservative policies that Republicans have enacted in recent years—from an anti-ESG investing law to, most recently and consequentially, the state’s private school voucher program.
The office has long been seen as a backwater and a waystation for ambitious politicians seeking higher office. But when wielded in the proper way—as an engine of good, clean, efficient government—as Bob Bullock did during his 16-year tenure in that office last century, it can be a powerful post. In the seemingly everlasting era of Republican one-party rule, however, it has devolved into a more overtly partisan executive subsidiary, one that’s highly deferential to the big boys of state government (governor, lite guv, and AG).
State Senator Sarah Eckhardt, an Austin Democrat and former Travis County judge, hopes to revive a more Bullockian comptrollership as she vies to become the latest Democratic nominee for the position, which is semi-vacant for the first time in 12 years. Glenn Hegar resigned from the office last year to take over the Texas A&M University system—and Governor Greg Abbott, in slippery legal fashion, replaced him with Republican state Senator Kelly Hancock as interim comptroller. Hancock is now running for election in a GOP primary field that also features Railroad Commissioner Christi Craddick and right-wing rabble-rouser Don Huffines.
