Assclown Alert is a column of opinion, analysis and snark.
Looks like newly appointed Texas Comptroller Don Huffines has a new hobby: pretending he’s governor. Or is he cosplaying Donald Trump at the Resolute Desk?
Either way, it’s as big a joke as the gubernatorial campaign that earned Huffines less than 12% of the vote in the 2022 GOP primary. For those who need a reminder: his showing was so pathetic that he finished third behind Tea Party feces-flinger Allen West.
As the Texas Tribune reports, Huffines spent recent weeks firing off a flurry of what he calls “executive orders,” complete with grandiose announcements and oversized documents suitable for framing. (Then again, most things look oversized next to Huffines, but we digress…)
Here’s the problem with that: Huffines ain’t governor, no matter how much he enjoys pretending otherwise.
Instead, he’s the state’s chief financial officer — a job that involves collecting taxes, overseeing contracts and scratching out revenue forecasts. Sure, it’s necessary work, but it doesn’t entitle him to issue presidential-style proclamations.
At least not ones anyone would take seriously.
Adding to the absurdity, Huffines’ “executive orders” (notice the quotation marks are still there) are largely instructions to his own staff to begin the ordinary process of changing agency rules.
In other words, Diminutive Don is dressing up routine administrative paperwork as bold exercises of executive power. It’s the bureaucratic equivalent of pretending you’re a cowboy because you put on a hat and some spurs. Kind of how Don pretends he’s a hunter by donning camo and carting around a small arsenal of firearms in his campaign commercials.
So far, Huffines has issued four such “executive orders” (the quotation marks haven’t gone anywhere), targeting taxes on online marketplace fees and medical records, funding for surveillance cameras and, naturally, state spending on diversity, equity and inclusion programs — the last because he’s gotta throw red meat to insecure white men.
Maybe some of those proposals — other than the anti-DEI one, of course — have merit. The jury’s still out, but that’s not really the point. The punchline here is that none of them requires Huffines to pretend he’s handing down stone tablets from Mount Sinai.
University of Houston political scientist Brandon Rottinghaus told the Tribune that Huffines’ orders amount to little more than internal housekeeping.
Naturally, there’s political calculus behind the theater.
Huffines, whom Gov. Greg Abbott appointed in August, faces Democratic state Sen. Sarah Eckhardt in November. With recent polls suggesting a close race, Huffines figures the best way to convince voters he’s, like, actually doing shit is to manufacture a steady stream of headlines.
The whole exercise is especially amusing coming from a politician who campaigned on his purported expertise in rooting out government waste. Apparently, wasting everyone’s fucking time on performative paperwork doesn’t count.
If Huffines wants to play governor, he can always challenge Abbott again. Oh, but that’s right, he tried that in 2022 and got his ass handed to him in a Styrofoam to-go box.
Until then, someone should remind this assclown that a fancy signature on an oversized piece of paper doesn’t confer executive authority. Instead, it puts his incompetence on full display.
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