Why a conservative Texas mayor defied his peers and put the brakes on an abortion “travel ban”

Amarillo Mayor Cole Stanley speaks during a City Council meeting on May 28, 2024. (Credit: Mark Rogers for The Texas Tribune)

Subscribe to The Y’all — a weekly dispatch about the people, places and policies defining Texas, produced by Texas Tribune journalists living in communities across the state.

---

AMARILLO — Mayor Cole Stanley was congratulating wrestler Tino Valentino for winning the inaugural Route 66 championship in front of the crowd at the Texas Route 66 Festival in Amarillo when Angel Camacho, “the Puerto Rican Juggernaut” charged the stage.

Valentino had just beaten Camacho, but the juggernaut was not ready to admit defeat.

After a round of trash-talking, Camacho struck Valentino from behind. While two cowboys pushed Camacho to the back of the stage, Mayor Stanley bent over to check on his city’s prized wrestler.

A woman screamed for Stanley to look out.

The loud thud from a steel chair clashing against Stanley’s back rang through the venue. Stanley crumpled on the stage in front of everyone.

It’s entirely possible that there was an Amarillo resident or two in the crowd who quietly rejoiced to see Stanley topple over. In his brief tenure as mayor of the Panhandle capital, Stanley has managed to upset and surprise a whole range of constituents. Most notably, Stanley has been at the center of the citywide debate over a proposed abortion “travel ban” that would prohibit the use of streets and highways in Amarillo to obtain an abortion in a state where the procedure is legal.

Proponents of the ordinance expected Stanley, a Republican, along with the rest of the council to rubber stamp the proposal like so many other city leaders across Texas did. Opponents don’t think he’s done enough to squash the matter, which will be up for a citywide vote in November.

Back at the festival, Stanley, who is in athletic shape from his years working at construction sites before getting into politics, got back on his feet. He would go on to referee a rematch between Valentino and Camacho, much like he has refereed the debate over the anti-abortion ordinance.

Stanley, 46, said he believes legislating anything related to abortion is above his grade.

“That’s just not my job,” he said in an interview with The Texas Tribune.

[After pause, this Texas city is set to reconsider banning travel to access an abortion]

Texas lawmakers have already made abortion illegal in almost all instances. Various reports suggest more than 35,000 women have left the state to get an abortion, a fact that fuels the anti-abortion activists who pushed the ordinances in many rural towns and counties last year.

Amarillo, a city of 202,000 people, is a gateway to New Mexico and Colorado, two of the nearest states that allow abortion and have seen an influx of Texas women at their clinics. The city’s proximity made it a key target for the grassroots anti-abortion movement, which began focusing on these bans and other ways to limit abortion access in 2023, just as Stanley was elected mayor.

“I don’t think that was the kind of decision he thought he would be making when he was running for mayor,” said Harper Metcalf, co-founder of the Amarillo Reproductive Freedom Alliance.

Stanley — a conservative leader who ran on faith, family and freedom — rejected the ordinance after proponents signaled they were unwilling to compromise. Stanley was prepared to adopt a local policy that mirrored state law and defined Amarillo as a “sanctuary city” for the unborn but did not include the travel provisions.

[As a Texas city debates an abortion travel ban, maternal care is scarce in nearby rural counties]

Residents were surprised. For his part, Stanley handled the issue the same way he has many other issues that have crossed his desk. He keeps his even-tempered demeanor during meetings. He routinely checks if anyone else wants to address the council in public comment sessions — regardless of if it’s late in the evening and they didn’t sign up. Through this, the council has heard from women’s rights advocates, anti-abortion activists, doctors, lawyers, and every concerned citizen in between.

Stanley acknowledges that some voters might believe he’s abandoned his conservative values. He insists he hasn’t — a mayor has to think about the entire city, not just his own policy preferences.

“This has been a good test of if I can stay true to myself, and care more about others than I do myself,” Stanley said. “So far so good, but I’ve taken a few friendly arrows in the back along the way.”

An early test 

One of those arrows struck Stanley before he was even elected, in a test that had the public wondering about his allegiance long before the abortion ordinance.

Stanley was accused of violating city council member policies for receiving a $40,000 donation to his campaign from Alex Fairly, a local businessman who Texas conservatives have tried to court as a new megadonor.

Fairly won a lawsuit against Amarillo after the council voted to use $260 million in tax and revenue notes for a project voters previously rejected. The city was also ordered to pay Fairly’s attorney fees, and the city appealed the ruling. On the campaign trail, Stanley said he would drop the appeal if he was elected.

The donation came in a few days later. Stanley defended himself at a testy council meeting, saying dropping it was the right thing to do and the donation was going to be on his next finance report. He went on to win the mayoral race with 75% of just over 21,000 votes two weeks later.

It was one of the first lessons Stanley said prepared him for the criticism he would face as the mayor. And it was an ironic one, given how Stanley did not have political aspirations or a desire to sit in an office or long meetings. In fact, he started a construction business to avoid it.

“I never wanted to do the same thing eight hours every day,” Stanley said.

In the late 2010s, Stanley began to observe what he called a shift in building rules. They became less about safety and more about compliance with energy efficiency standards. A self-proclaimed complainer, Stanley let his opinions be known.

Someone suggested he run for office. Stanley won his first at-large council seat representing Amarillo in 2021, then ran for mayor in 2023.

“I really didn’t ever want to be the mayor,” Stanley said. “Even when I was running, I didn’t think this is what I should do. But if you’re going to complain, you should be willing to help.”

Since he was elected, there have been times when donors and non-donors alike have had issues with certain stances he’s taken. His job isn’t to care about the optics, he said, but to think of all of Amarillo’s residents — whether they share the same views as him, or contributed to his campaign.

“I don’t know why anyone would come down here and take all the insults, get themselves into all the arguments if you’re just working for somebody else,” Stanley said. “Shoot, it don’t pay enough.”

He admits the criticism is more than he expected. For the most part, however, Stanley says he can take it and learn from it, especially when it stems from a decision that was his doing. For instance, the council passed an ordinance last year that would subject massage parlors to surprise inspections — an effort to crack down on human trafficking.

It was a quick decision without much public input — a different approach than the careful one Stanley typically takes. Stanley said it resulted in a Sunday afternoon meeting with angry massage therapists. They later repealed the policy. Stanley said it was good intentions but bad execution.

“I can say that’s my fault, I did this to myself,” Stanley said.

"Jurisdictional overreach"

After months of debate and a resident petition, Stanley and the Amarillo City Council approved ballot language allowing voters to have the final say on the abortion “travel ban” — a rare instance for Texas voters to weigh in on one of the most impassioned issues in American politics.

Then, another issue came up. The Amarillo Economic Development Corporation, a private nonprofit separate from the city, was accused of misappropriating $750,000 in an unauthorized payment to The Range, Amarillo’s global food hub. The check was $650,000 more than originally authorized.

The city acts as a bank to the nonprofit. And the council also approves its budget. The nonprofit’s leaders said they are allowed to move money within line items as long as they stay in the budget.

The council is reviewing the transaction, and for the most part, Stanley has handled it the same public, methodical way he does. At a press conference in mid-September, Stanley said the payment did not involve criminal activity but did breach procurement guidelines.

“Our responsibility is to ensure that all financial transactions comply with legal and procedural standards,” Stanley said.

Stanley tries to work at his actual job a few times a week, but being the mayor can be a full-time, unpaid job on its own, given the gravity of the role.

He’s spent even more time at City Hall since the anti-abortion ordinance was introduced. The council has been inundated with emails, calls and letters from both sides. Council duties feel heavier than a typical 40 hours at his job, he said.

“On construction sites, I don’t have a nine-hour meeting where I’m engaged with different sides trying to get the upper hand in a debate,” Stanley said.

There’s been no shortage of influential people weighing in from outside the city limits too.

Twenty state lawmakers voiced early support for it through a letter, and other municipal leaders have written letters to the council too. Meanwhile, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services this month to try to block a federal rule that protects the medical records of women from criminal investigation if she has an abortion in a state where it’s legal.

National women’s groups, including the Women’s March, have come out against it. And U.S. Senate candidate Colin Allred, a Dallas Democrat in Congress, stumped against it with the Amarillo Reproductive Freedom Alliance.

Downtown Amarillo on June 18. (Credit: Desiree Rios for The Texas Tribune)

From the beginning of the debate, Stanley has been openly conflicted. He has said he personally opposes abortions and calls himself “pro-life.” However, he has been especially critical over the role the City Council should play. He believes in small government, and says this ordinance goes against that principle.

“It’s as big government as they come, in terms of jurisdictional overreach,” Stanley said.

Steve Austin, a spokesperson for the Sanctuary City for the Unborn Initiating Committee, said they’ve had a frustrating and disappointing experience working with Stanley and the council, aside from member Don Tipps. Tipps wanted the council to support the ordinance.

“We love Mayor Cole Stanley and the rest of the City Council, but they just really let us down,” Austin said in an emailed statement to the Tribune.

So much more than expected

The so-called travel ban, which originally flipped the city upside down a year ago, is now weeks away from being decided by voters. Even after rejecting it, the council has still discussed the ordinance. The only difference is now, they’ve had to work out how to fit an 18-page ordinance on an election ballot so voters can be informed.

Metcalf, with the Amarillo Reproductive Freedom Alliance, said it would be better if the city wasn’t spending time, money and energy on the ballot proposition. However, she does think putting it on the ballot was the best the council, and Stanley, could do.

“He was put in a position where he had a difficult choice to make,” Metcalf said.

Austin, with the sanctuary city committee, said they don’t understand why the council rejected it. He suggested a campaign by local and national organizations may have played a role. Regardless, he says their mission is no longer to convince the mayor or the council, but to inform Amarillo voters.

Looking back on the first year of his term, Stanley says it was so much more than he expected. He’s proud of how their leadership handled the sanctuary city debate, despite their inexperience as a council.

“We held long meetings with two sides that couldn’t get along at Jimmy John’s in the same lunch line for five minutes,” Stanley said. “Yet, they were able to come in here and respect each other.”

As November comes closer, Stanley is focused on being a leader for the city. He declined to share how he will vote on the proposition as a resident, so as not to sway the vote one way or the other.

The Texas Tribune answering reader questions about 2024 elections. To share your question or feedback with us, you can fill out this form.