George P. Bush Announces Re-Election Bid As Texas General Land Office Commissioner

AUSTIN, TX — George P. Bush on Monday announced he will seek re-election as land commissioner next year.

Bush, 41, has served as land commissioner since 2015, leading a stat agency overseeing state lands and natural resources. The state's resource generate revenue for the $37 billion Permanent School Fund.

In a campaign video produced to launch his re-election bid, Bush—son of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, grandson of former president George H.W. Bush, and nephew of former president George W. Bush—stressed his conservative ideals he espouses.

"Three years ago, he offered us a conservative agenda," a deep-voiced narrator says with dramatic delivery. "Today, he offers us a conservative record of accomplishment. As Texas land commissioner, George P. Bush boldly stood up for Texas, her people and our Texas values."

Then, at the end of the video, Bush himself intones in announcing his pursuit of a second four-year term: “Conservative principles, conservative results. That’s what we’re doing at the general land office, and we’re just getting started.”

The video ticks off what Bush considers to be his major accomplishments leading the General Land Office: Conserving the Alamo, helping veterans secure home loans and counseling services, standing up for the "sanctity of life," and other reached goals.

The latter is more of a tactic at playing to his conservative base than ticking off a job requirement to head the land office with stewardship over government property. But the narrator amplifies on the point to ensure the messaging: "George P. Bush will always defend life—anywhere and everywhere."

The video also makes note of the agency's fight with the federal government last year when it sued to prevent what it categorized as a unconstitutional seizure of state land. Texas joined a lawsuit filed by seven landowning families against the federal Bureau of Land Management in accusing the federal government of a "blatant land grab." The litigation centered on a 116-mile swath of land along the Red River partially marking the Texas-Oklahoma border.

The real estate dispute was steeped in complexity given decades of shifting waters altering the demarcating topography that sparked a federal effort to reclassify property as public land, but the video summarized it in more succinct if reductive terms with Bush as emerging protagonist: "When Barack Obama and the Bureau of Land Management tried to take over Texas land, Commissioner Bush fiercely pushed back and halted the illegal land grab," the narrator intones.

Another accomplishment mentioned is making the GLO a leaner operation through staff cutbacks and a revamped budget. It also mentions the commissioner's support of so-called school choice, an effort to redirect public school money for tuition assistance to help parents preferring private schooling for their children.

But Bush's tenure at the land office hasn't been without controversy. His agency was among several roundly criticized last year for continuing to pay former state employees even months after they quit working for the state. As part of the scheme, some $1 million was paid out as an incentive for workers not to sue the state government over their terminations.

As outlined in records obtained by the Houston Chronicle, Bush directed the General Land Office to keep at least 40 people on the payroll for as long as five months after he ended their employment as part of the agency reboot he touts on his re-election campaign video. Many of the recipients of the continuing payroll payments were top aides of Bush's predecessor, Jerry Patterson, who were fired as part of the agency streamlining. In return for accruing more time for as long as they were on the payroll, terminated employees agreed in writing not to sue the agency or discuss the deal, the Chronicle reported.

Photo credit: Gage Skidmore via Wikimeedia Commons