Courtesy of Bastrop Advertiser
Feb. 24, 2022
By Bill McCann
I recently finished reading a delightfully funny series of mystery novels by former Austinite and colleague Jeff Bruce about a Florida-based journalist named Alexander Strange who seeks out news of the weird and regularly gets into trouble in doing so. If Alexander Strange wants big-time weird, he might try Texas.
For example, what could be weirder than a candidate for an important Texas state office stripping off her clothes and striding an oil pumpjack to get voters’ attention for the March 1 primary election? And she’s a Republican, no less, in a state full of prudish GOPers with noses so blue they want to ban schoolbooks that have a few naughty words or mention of sex in them.
The Texas version of Lady Godiva is West Texas attorney Sarah Stogner, 37, who is running in the Republican primary for the Texas Railroad Commission — a crucial, but little known and misnamed state agency that is supposed to regulate oil and gas, not railroads. Stogner is one of four candidates for the open commission seat in the Republican primary.
To clarify, Stogner’s pumpjack wasn’t exactly a bucking bronco, and she wasn’t nude. She wore underpants and star-shaped pasties on top. And she wore a cowboy hat. A five-second video ad of her on the pumpjack appeared on social media last week and drew decent exposure for Stogner. She wanted to stir things up by attracting attention to herself and the commission. She certainly seems to have done that.
She also sought to spotlight several key issues. One problem expressed by Stogner and others who follow the three-member commission is that commissioners often go light on regulation and heavy on collecting campaign contributions from the state’s energy industry to stay in office. Critics cite, for example, the current all-Republican commission’s reticence to requiring natural gas operations to properly weatherize equipment to avoid a repeat of last year’s near-collapse of the state’s electric grid, which relies heavily on natural gas to fuel its power plants.
As a result, Stogner says she is not accepting campaign contributions to emphasize that she won’t sell out to the energy businesses she would regulate. “They said I needed money,” Stogner states in presenting her video on Twitter. “I have other assets.”
She told KENS 5 TV in San Antonio: “I want to put my clothes back on and have a serious conversation. I want to talk about groundwater. I want to talk about flaring. I want to talk about winterizing our infrastructure pipelines. But that’s boring. It doesn’t get clickbait.”
Some political observers found Stogner’s campaign video to be in poor taste. I think it’s refreshing. The San Antonio Express-News initially endorsed her as the best Republican primary candidate for the seat, picking her over three others, including current commission chair, far-right former gospel singer and state representative Wayne Christian, who has faced recent ethics questions about campaign contributions. The Express-News praised Stogner for offering “the vision, energy and tenacity to make real changes” at the commission. Then the newspaper quickly rescinded its endorsement after her video appeared.
Meanwhile, the respected Capitol Inside website called Stogner “the hottest candidate on the primary ballot by far in 2022 in more ways than one.” While Texas Republican officials march in lockstep and subservience to former President Donald Trump, Capitol Inside stated, “Stogner’s ad shows the kind of independence and ingenuity that’s been missing in a majority party in recent years.”
I can imagine how Jeff Bruce’s wise-cracking character Alexander Strange might have responded. Maybe something like: “Nice try with the sexy video, Sarah. But Texas Republicans these days usually won’t vote for you unless you also carry a Trump sign and an AK-47.”
McCann is a contributing columnist for the Advertiser. He is a retired journalist and may be reached at [email protected].
