GOP Portrayals on Obama Era Czars
No Factor in Texas Advisor Naming
Capitol Inside
January 31, 2023
Republicans sought for years to cast Barack Obama in a Soviet light amid outrage over his use of executive power to hire advisors who were known as czars and held to lower accountability standards than members of Congress or appointees to government posts. But Governor Greg Abbott wasn't worried about the same Russian connotations when he selected former federal agent Mike Banks to serve as the first Texas border czar or czar of any kind in a significant role at the state level.
The term czar is Slavic in origin and stems from the name Caesar. It was employed commonly in the First Bulgarian Empire and used to describe the Russian emperor Nicolas II before his ouster at the outset of the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917. Czar has generally been used in the United States and the United Kingdom to describe high-ranking advisors to elected officials in the executive branch of the federal governments.
Donald Trump made fun of the title in his first race for president in 2016 before continuing the practice with more so-called czars than his predecessor after taking office the following year. But Abbott waited more than eight years in contrast before the enlistment of Banks on Monday to serve as a special advisor on border matters. Banks worked for the U.S. Border Patrol for nearly two dozen years with an array of positions in Texas, Arizona and California. He served as the agent in charge of the Weslaco station and will based there during the stint as an Abbott czar.
Abbott said that Banks would focus on the Texas response to President Joe Biden's "open border policies" - an ambiguous phrase that's based on repeated false claims about the state doing more to enforce immigration and security on the Rio Grande than the federal government. Abbott's office asserted that Banks would give Texas a "proper border czar" who has actual experience and expertise - an apparent slap at Vice-President Kamala Harris as the Biden administration's border czar and a popular target for the GOP.
When asked about his duties as the border czar at a briefing with Abbott in San Benito, Banks suggested that he wanted to make it as hard as possible for migrants who travel to Texas from Mexico to seek legal asylum in the U.S.
“For me, the number one priority is to make the State of Texas the least desirable place for illegal immigration to cross,” Banks said. How the new border czar can pull that off with having an adverse affect on the quality of life for residents remains a mystery at this point.
The state doesn't have the authority to turn back migrants from entering the U.S. - and the Texas border mission Operation Lone Star has done nothing to curb the flow of people across the Rio Grande as a consequence. Abbott has come under increasing fire from conservatives for inaction in the face of surging migrant rates - and the Texas border initiative has been dismissed on the far right as an ongoing publicity stunt. But Abbott's office spiced up the announcement on Banks by touting 14 separate actions that he's taken at the border that are unprecedented - and the addition of the debut czar appears to qualify as a record 15th.
The two top commanders for the mission Operation Lone Star - Department of Public Safety Director Steve McCraw and Texas Military Department Major General Thomas Sueltzer - saluted the addition of Banks and praised the governor for unprecedented leadership on the issue. But the governor's belated hiring of a border czar could be tantamount to a tacit demotion of McCraw and Sueltzer to a back seat at the decision-making table.
Houston has turned to so-called czars for the Hurricane Harvey recovery effort in 2018 and the COVID-19 repening two years later. But Banks appears to be blazing trails as a state-sanctioned czar. He could get an idea of the expectations that hardline Republicans in Texas expect a border czar to be by reading a press release on a move by U.S. Rep. Ronny Jackson of Amarillo last year in March to force Harris out as the national border czar.
"The resolution also calls for Biden to fill the role with a more competent leader who will: acknowledge that border security is national security, provide Customs and Border Protection (CBP) with the resources they have been deprived of, take action to protect American communities from fentanyl which has poured across our southern border at an alarming rate during Biden’s Border Crisis, and not allow decisions on border security measures to be guided by politics instead of protection," Jackson said.
more to come .... |
