Texas governor appoints Republican candidate state comptroller

Huffines for Comptroller campaign

Texas will get another temporary state comptroller starting Aug. 1 after the Republican candidate running for the office was tapped to fill in for the current acting comptroller who resigned.

Gov. Greg Abbott announced last week the appointment of Don Huffines in the wake of the resignation of Kelly Hancock, who Abbott selected last year to fill the remainder of Glenn Hegar's term in office after he left to become chancellor of The Texas A&M University System.

"Don Huffines brings the right mix of business experience and conservative principles to this vital office," the Republican governor said in a statement. "His private-sector experience and dedication to limited government make him exceptionally qualified to lead the state's finances and protect every taxpayer dollar with integrity and accountability."

Huffines, a co-founder of a real estate development company who served as a state senator from 2015 to 2019, trounced Hancock, who is also a former state senator, and two other candidates in the March 3 Republican primary. 

In a statement from his campaign, Huffines called the comptroller's office "the financial command center of the eighth-largest economy in the world."

"My commitment is simple: run government lean, protect every tax dollar, and keep Texas the best place to live, raise a family, and run a business," he said.

State Sen. Sarah Eckhardt, the Democratic nominee for comptroller in the Nov. 3 general election, denounced Huffines' appointment in a post on the X platform. 

"Leave it to Abbott to use his power and put in a loyalist rather than actually respect the will of the voters," she said.

The comptroller's office oversees the triple-A-rated state's treasury, provides revenue estimates for the Texas biennial budget, and manages programs, including a $1 billion private-school voucher program that launched in February.

The office is also responsible for maintaining a list of financial firms determined to be boycotting the fossil fuel industry under a 2021 state law. Boycotters are banned from state and local government contracts worth $100,000 or more, including ones for municipal bond underwriting and investment purposes.

The state stopped enforcing the law after a U.S. District Court judge in February determined it was unconstitutional, but resumed enforcement after a federal appeals court granted a motion for a stay of the lower court's order on May 29.

Hancock's action late last year to eliminate minority- and women-owned business enterprises (MWBE) from Texas' Historically Underutilized Businesses (HUB) program for state contracts was temporarily blocked by a Travis County District Court judge in April.