There was a time when I’d have cared about this, but that time has passed.
Rep. Jacey Jetton
In many ways, state Rep. Jacey Jetton could be the poster child for the Texas Republican Party.
He is a young, married father of color, the son of a Korean immigrant and a member of the Army National Guard. He is a “Christian first” who leads religious services in his home every other Saturday. In his first two terms in office, Jetton has helped usher in some of the state’s most conservative and controversial measures, including border wall funding, a sweeping elections bill, an abortion ban and a prohibition on gender-affirming care for transgender youth.
But some in the GOP can’t get over one lingering detail: Jetton voted to impeach Attorney General Ken Paxton on corruption charges in May.
In the months since, Jetton has been labeled a RINO — a Republican in name only — by some of the party’s farthest-right members, and he faces two primary challengers who say he is not conservative enough and has abandoned voters in his Fort Bend County district. Paxton and U.S. Rep. Troy Nehls, his hometown congressman, have endorsed a primary opponent. Both have called him a “liberal.”
Jetton, of Richmond, is one of several conservative House Republicans facing difficult and likely expensive primaries this year over singular issues — impeachment chief among them. Gov. Greg Abbott also is opposing GOP House members who voted against his priority legislation on a private school voucher plan, regardless of their stances on other issues. Abbott endorsed Jetton, who authored a voucher proposal this year, and is going head-to-head with Paxton in at least 21 primary races.
He’s also at least election denialist adjacent; certainly, he took tangible steps to make administering elections less secure and efficient. I’ll give him credit for his vote to impeach Paxton, which indicates he’s not a complete drone, but there’s nothing else there to point to. He’s Briscoe Cain in a purple district. The way to make the House a better place is to elect a Democrat in HD26. The only thing that matters in his primary is that enough hard feelings are generated by the loser to make that a little bit easier.
There are some Republican primaries that I have no choice but to care about as they involve members who correctly opposed vouchers and the zombies being backed by Greg Abbott and his billionaire overlords. While the results of the HD02 special election offer some reason for optimism, relying on Republican primary voters to do the right thing is a losing proposition. But here we are.
Its a Republican primary. Start looking for the Republican Family Project campaign mailers about Jetton’s interracial background and his Chinese wife.