Sid Miller and Susan Hays compete for Texas agriculture commissioner

LUBBOCK — A mere 44 miles, a flyspeck on the map, separates the Central Texas cities the place Sid Miller and Susan Hays grew up.

For Miller, it was De Leon, a city with lower than 3,000 individuals. For Hays, it was Brownwood, a one-high-school city. The two cities have wealthy histories in farming and ranching.

Both their households have been within the state for generations, Hays’ since simply after the Civil War and Miller’s for the reason that 1700s. Both grew up managing cattle at their households’ ranches. Both discovered success, Hays as a lawyer combating for human rights and Miller as a nationwide award-winning rodeo cowboy.

Miller and Hays can each legitimately declare deep Texas roots, however from these roots grew two diametrically opposed politicians now operating towards one another for Texas agriculture commissioner. Their visions of presidency, and its duties, are worlds aside. They need higher for Texas, however paint totally different photos of what that’s.

With his signature cowboy hat and pressed blue denims, Miller, 67, is the old-school picture of a Texas cowboy. He was drawn to the Republican Party as a result of he noticed it because the celebration of freedom.

Hays, 53, is a headstrong Democrat and an equal rights lawyer who has fought for ladies, pregnant minors and Texas voters. Her political ideologies are pushed by her classes in trip Bible college and rising up round politicians whom she thought-about good examples for public service.

The contest to function rural Texas’ ambassador to the state has turn into animated.

Hays has questioned Miller’s ethics and pointed to his controversies. This contains Miller’s status for making offensive remarks about immigrants, spreading falsehoods on social media, and the indictment of his longtime political marketing consultant on prices of theft and bribery in change for state hemp licenses.

“He’s just not suited for public office and not suited for this management role and outreach role that this office demands,” Hays stated. “He’s proven himself to not be trustworthy.”

Miller, who confronted comparable assaults throughout a three-way main earlier this yr that he received handily, stated controversies about him are a Democratic technique and a “low way” to marketing campaign.

“That’s the Democrat campaign strategy, just to throw something out there, get people like you to report on it, whether it’s true or not, and get the headlines,” Miller stated. “Any and every one of those controversies that have been falsely charged against me or some of my people have all been disproven. None of them are credible.”

Hays faces an uphill battle to get elected statewide as a Democrat. For greater than 20 years, Republicans have held each statewide workplace. In 2018, Miller beat retired Air Force Col. Kim Olson by 5 proportion factors.

Both candidates have high-profile endorsements — three former Texas Supreme Court justices, all Republican, have endorsed Hays, whereas Miller has former president Donald Trump’s endorsement.

Hays seems to have a fundraising edge. During the newest marketing campaign fundraising interval, July 1 by means of Sept. 30, Hays raised $115,505. Miller banked $48,000 throughout the identical interval. However, the Republican incumbent has a cash-on-hand benefit, with $168,777 within the financial institution. Hays has about half that with $85,157.

The winner of this election will lead the state agriculture division that juggles a number of duties. It gives monetary help to farmers and ranchers, affords infrastructure grants in rural communities to draw improvement, markets Texas merchandise and oversees measuring units in grocery shops. It additionally oversees the state’s division of rural well being, which helps rural hospitals with monetary assist and technical help.

Whether it’s Miller or Hays in workplace subsequent yr, the agriculture commissioner has a number of points coming to a head. Texas farmers and ranchers are dealing with powerful monetary hardships from the consequences of the drought and excessive warmth.

Kody Bessent, CEO of Plains Cotton Growers, stated producers want a staunch advocate who will promote Texas-grown merchandise on a worldwide scale.

“We can produce a crop of very, very high quality, but we have to continue to use all the platforms we have to promote that,” Bessent defined.

And the agricultural way of life is more and more endangered. Take, for instance, rural well being care. Texas leads the nation in rural hospital closures. Meanwhile, one other 4 million Texans wrestle with starvation and meals shortage due to inflation.

Adrian Billings is a household medication doctor with Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, the place he focuses on reviving rural well being care. Billings stated it might be tremendously helpful if the agriculture division would assist with that mission.

“Rural health should be more of a priority,” Billings stated. “I would love to see more of an investment financially, as well as with time and resources. I’d like to see more of that happening and to try and bridge this gap of urban and rural health care disparities.”

Susan Hays is known as again to rural life 

This is the primary time Hays is operating for elected workplace, however she’s no stranger to Texas politics. Throughout her authorized profession, Hays labored on the Texas Legislature and the Texas Supreme Court, and co-founded Jane’s Due Process, a authorized providers nonprofit for pregnant minors.

Most lately, Hays has discovered herself training legislation within the hashish business — she helped write and go the Texas hemp legalization invoice in 2019 and calls herself Texas’ first “cannabis super lawyer.” Part of her marketing campaign message is to proceed that work by absolutely legalizing hashish within the state.

But she needs to legalize the crop for greater than the recognition factors. Hays believes it might be a money crop alternative for farmers and a lift to the Texas economic system. However, hemp in Texas hasn’t lived as much as expectations.

“People aren’t afraid of it anymore. They or someone they know has tried it and found it to be very helpful,” Hays stated. “The other piece of it is once we have stable cannabis markets, which we’re a long way from right now, it’s one of the few crops somebody can make a living off of on an acre or less.”

And she believes she can be the correct agriculture commissioner to see the duty by means of.

“I’m a policy wonk and smart enough to figure out how to get things done the right way,” Hays stated. “And I also enjoy getting my boots dirty and getting out there.”

Hays loves being in a rural group now, however rising up, she was pulling off cow ticks and serving to her brothers castrate calves — whereas carrying a gown — and wanting for a means out. She grew to become the trope of a rural child transferring away looking for a greater residing.

A couple of years in the past, rural life was calling her dwelling. Hays and her husband purchased land in Alpine, a small city framed by mile-high mountains and an hour’s automotive journey north of Big Bend National Park.

“I’ve always been deeply attached to the land, and enjoy being out in it and getting dirt under my fingernails,” Hays stated.

Hays promotes practices that might assist farmers increase their crop development even with Texas’ altering local weather. And she needs to pay farmers for placing carbon again into the soil to fight local weather change, which will be carried out by means of strategies like cowl crops or conservation tilling.

And then there may be rural well being care, a subject Hays evoked at a latest rally with gubernatorial candidate Beto O’Rourke at Texas Tech University. The hole in entry is barely getting wider, she stated.

“If you look at survival rates from traumatic accidents or heart attacks, you know it’s the first hour that matters,” Hays stated. “If you’re an hour away from getting emergency care, you’re more likely to die or be permanently disabled.”

She additionally needs Texas to broaden Medicaid, saying it’s “asinine” that the state leaves federal tax {dollars} on the ground by not. Texas is one among 12 Republican-controlled states that haven’t expanded protection below the Affordable Care Act. It’s estimated that Texas would receive $6.3 billion yearly, and protection can be expanded to incorporate 1 million enrollees.

Sid Miller stands by his report

Miller touts a listing of accomplishments over his two phrases in workplace, such because the Farm Fresh program, a farm-to-school initiative that noticed faculties buy $65 million value of contemporary meals, and Operation Maverick, which investigated greater than 7,000 companies working with unlawful scales.

And he touts the Texas Sunset Advisory Commission’s review of the company from 2021 during which the division was known as “well-managed.”

“The Sunset Commission said we’re the best state agency they’ve ever reviewed, so I think that says a lot about what we’ve done and what type of people we have with the TDA,” Miller stated.

The fee, which evaluations state businesses and packages for effectivity, did be aware that “the department’s day-to-day responsibilities are largely removed from the politics and public attention focused on the commissioner.”

But a few of Miller’s political actions have caught the general public’s consideration, and not in a great way. When requested about spreading fabricated pictures or supporting tales on social media, Miller stated he doesn’t personally publish the whole lot to his accounts and that his group takes posts down “most of the time” after they discover out they’re false.

More lately, Miller was the particular visitor speaker at a screening of the debunked movie “2000 Mules,” which falsely claims there was vital voter fraud through the 2020 presidential election.

Miller’s household has been ranching for the reason that 1700s, and Miller continued that custom himself. He later turned it into 20 world rodeo championships. Miller stated agriculture has at all times been the glue that holds Texas collectively.

“We don’t own the land, the land owns us,” Miller stated. “Agriculture is the heartbeat of America.”

When it involves maintaining agriculture secure, although, Miller’s conservative views are vastly totally different from Hays’. At the highest of Miller’s record is stopping China from shopping for farmland within the U.S. And Miller does need to broaden and absolutely implement medical hashish use. His assist for hashish legalization ends with “compassionate use.”

When requested about full legalization, Miller adamantly stated, “I’m not for that.”

In the face of historic crop losses from the drought, Miller, who has acknowledged people have contributed to local weather change, stated producers will likely be turning to crop insurance coverage. However, crop insurance coverage doesn’t make up for the tens of millions of {dollars} in misplaced merchandise, whether or not that be cotton or vegetable crops. When pressed on learn how to get to the basis of the issue, Miller stated there wasn’t a lot to do.

“Well the root of the problem is it doesn’t rain,” Miller stated. “Not much I can do about that, other than pray.”

Miller additionally sees the agricultural well being care panorama otherwise. He factors to the work the division did with distilleries through the COVID-19 pandemic to offer sanitizer and different assets. He stated rural hospitals are in “good shape” since federal and state funds had been distributed to amenities round Texas through the pandemic.

“So financially, they’re pretty sound,” Miller stated. “They’re back to doing elective surgeries” — which had been at occasions placed on maintain through the pandemic — “and it’s business as usual now.”

Disclosure: Texas Tech University and the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center have been monetary supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news group that’s funded partially by donations from members, foundations and company sponsors. Financial supporters play no position within the Tribune’s journalism. Find an entire record of them right here.