Forget the Alamo Panel that Patrick Forgot
Could Be Fuel for Tenure Attack and 2026
Capitol Inside
January 25, 2023
The Shrine of Texas Liberty, a defiant group of Longhorns and a thirst for revenge could be motivating factors in Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick's decision to seek a fourth term in a rare and dramatic flip-flop for the Maryland native who's arguably the most powerful legislative leader in the history of the Lone Star State.
Patrick fired a torpedo into the dreams and aspirations of countless Republicans on Tuesday when he revealed that he plans to run again in 2026 with a campaign that would put him on track to be the second longest-serving Texas Senate president in history.
Patrick, who turns 73 in April, began his ninth year with the gavel at his joint inauguration with Governor Greg Abbott at the statehouse in Austin last week. Patrick had assured Texans in recent years that he would not seek the statewide post again if he emerged successful in 2022. Patrick defeated Democrat Mike Collier with almost 54 percent of the vote in a rematch last fall. Patrick averaged 54.4 percent in three winning bids for the job he hopes to have for at least eight more years.
With Abbott as a good shot for a fourth re-election race despite visions of a presidential bid in 2024, Patrick's broken term limits pledge could destroy the hopes of moving up the statewide power chain that an assortment of ambitious Republicans have harbored and had on hold until the blockage clears at the top. Patrick would be almost 80 at the end of a fourth four-year term.
“I really love what I do,” Patrick said at a forum hosted by The Texan - a conservative publication that former Senate Republican Konni Burton operates. “I’m in good health, and I just won by eight hundred and thirty-some thousand votes, so why wouldn’t I come back? I think we’ll be in good shape in ’26 in the primary and the general.”
While age doesn't appear to be a variable, the lieutenant governor did not elaborate on any specific problems that might be fueling his desire to keep the unprecedented power that the GOP majority has delegated to him as the presiding officer in the Texas Capitol's east wing. The Senate Republicans have sacrificed massive sway to Patrick in exchange for plum committee assignments and the chance to avoid his wrath.
But Patrick could have an eye on the long game with a ramped up push for private school vouchers and a simultaneous bid to eliminate tenure at public institutions of higher education in Texas in the regular session that entered its third week on Tuesday. Public universities in Texas and other states view tenure as a lifeblood necessity that they need to prevent an exodus of the best and brightest professors from their ranks.
Patrick has justified the power grab on the grounds that some professors at the University of Texas in Austin have incorporated critical race theory into curriculums that are designed to indoctrinate. The lieutenant governor has offered no meaningful evidence to support the allegations in a move that would be giving the Legislature more control of Texas public universities at the expense of the schools' individual governing boards.
Patrick and the Republicans in Austin discovered CRT in 2020 when Donald Trump made it in an issue in the closing stages of the 2020 election after learning about it himself in a Fox News interview. The Senate took the lead when Abbott had the Legislature ban the newfound phenomenon twice the following year.
But Patrick may have another bone to pick with UT that he's keeping to his vest for now. The lieutenant governor has added cause for payback after an apparent spurning by the University of Texas on an event that Patrick said the school had agreed to stage for the sake of discrediting a book that sought to set the record straight on the Alamo.
Patrick said in July 2021 that the forum that UT would sponsor would be scheduled within a few weeks of the announcement that he made in a statement on his web site. The panel discussion that Patrick planned to have at the state's flagship university would focus on Forget the Alamo - a book that a trio of Texas authors wrote and Penguin Random House published that spring. The book confirmed what historians had known for decades - that the battle at the mission in San Antonio was actually a product of the Mexican government's plans to ban slavery in Texas.
“It is time that these writers are asked tough questions by serious historians about their research and thesis," Patrick said. "I have asked the University of Texas if they would host a panel with the Forget the Alamo and authors alongside history experts to explore the scholarship of this book, debate the facts and get to the truth. The university has agreed to host this event and I hope it will be scheduled in the next few weeks.”
But the Forget the Alamo event at UT has yet to materialize despite the fanfare - and Patrick has been uncharacteristically silent on the subject since announcing that it would take place. Patrick had fired an opening salvo two weeks earlier when he pressured officials at the Bullock Texas State History Musuem to cancel a program on the book that hundreds of people planned to attend there shortly before it was set to begin.
Patrick has said nothing publicly about the event since Forget the Alamo emerged as New York Times bestseller shortly after he promoted the UT event that would ostensibly debunk it. The prevailing sentiment at the time was that the publicity that Patrick gave the book sent it soaring up the charts in an unforeseen earnings boost for the authors and publisher.
Forget the Alamo appears to be critical race theory based on the ambiguous definition that Texas Republicans have loosely embraced. That would make a prime starting point for the Patrick panel if it's simply been delayed and will be revisited at some point. |
