More than a year and a half since Governor Greg Abbott launched his taxpayer-financed plan to build a border wall along the Texas-Mexico border, the state has made little progress. But Abbott may soon have several miles of new wall to tout—thanks to a major deal the state just struck with one of the governor’s top campaign donors.
Late last month, Texas acquired five miles of land to build 30-foot steel fencing through a sprawling 40,000-acre private ranch owned by Stuart Stedman, a Houston-based heir to an oil and ranching fortune who also happens to rank among the governor’s biggest political patrons.
Stedman has contributed $1.1 million to Abbott’s campaigns since 2015, including $600,000 in the most recent election cycle, campaign finance records show. In 2021, Abbott appointed Stedman to the board of regents of the University of Texas System, the type of influential post the governor has long used to reward his most generous political backers. Prior, Stedman was one of the governor’s appointees to the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board.
