For land office

Suazo has drive, clear vision for agency, unlike Bush, who flubbed Alamo, Harvey recovery.

Commissioner of the General Land Office: Miguel Suazo

George P. Bush - Republican Party:

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Miguel Suazo - Democratic Party: Four years ago we enthusiastically endorsed George P. Bush for land commissioner. We said he was “the real deal.” Turns out, we were really off.

You don’t have to take our word for it. Bush’s predecessor in the office, Republican Jerry Patterson, not only has refused to endorse Bush. He is actually reaching across the aisle to endorse Democratic candidate Miguel Suazo.

The defection from the party line is more widespread than a single Republican activist: Bush’s other Republican primary opponents — Rick Range, Davey Edwards and David Watts — all signed a letter with Patterson saying they would not be voting for Bush in November.

In these divisive times, when allegiance to political parties has become tribal, the bipartisan objection to Bush says a lot. Suazo has our endorsement as well. In contrast to so many politicians who like to play a hardscrabble cowboy in campaign ads, Suazo, 37, has lived that role. He grew up on a cattle ranch and labored as a janitor to put himself through the University of New Mexico. He has experience working as a staffer on Capitol Hill for U.S. Sen. Jeff Bingaman, a New Mexico Democrat who retired in 2013.

Today, Suazo works as an Austin-based energy and natural resources attorney and has an expert’s knowledge of oil and gas law and water law. These are key issues for the man in charge of Texas’ oldest state agency. The position’s most important job involves the massive oil and gas reserves under state soil. Revenues from those mineral rights serve as a core asset for the state’s Permanent School Fund.

Other responsibilities include overseeing a land program for Texas veterans and protecting the coastline, which has taken on a new importance in the decade after Hurricane Ike.

The office also is responsible for millions of historic maps and documents, and let’s not forget a certain historic mission: the Alamo.

Land commissioner is an important role, but most of its duties are almost ministerial in nature, and the best commissioners can go months without making headlines. Bush stands out for making the news too often.

His time in office started with a personnel scandal in which at least 40 department employees were paid nearly $1 million in taxpayer money not to sue the agency after they left their jobs.

More recently, Bush got in a political tussle with Republican members of the State Board of Education over investment funds.

Bush’s biggest problem, however, has been with the Alamo.

He fired the Daughters of the Republic of Texas, longtime managers of the Alamo, hoping for a fresh start. His idea for the site isn’t necessarily a bad one. The symbol of Texas independence needs to be protected from the ravages of time and weather, and the surrounding area should be cleared of the tourist-trap gimmickry that undermines the historic nature of the site.

But as Suazo put it, somehow Bush has managed to “snatch division from the jaws of unity.” The whole process has become an expensive muddle, generating controversy and dissension among Texas history buffs and Republican lawmakers alike.

Suazo has dedicated himself to studying Alamo history and conferred with both Patterson and Range, who founded the Save the Alamo Committee, and says he plans to return the site to the Daughters of the Republic — but with more oversight.

Bush has been a consistent champion of a coastal storm surge barrier, and for that he deserves credit. Long before Hurricane Harvey was even a low-pressure system on some meteorologist’s map, Bush had sent a letter to President Donald Trump requesting $15 billion for the critical infrastructure project. He was one of the first politicians to have a deep, working familiarity with the Ike Dike concept.

But Suazo can match Bush’s passion for protecting the coast. And unlike the incumbent, he wouldn’t flip-flop on calling out the governor for refusing to call a special session of the Legislature after the greatest natural disaster in Houston history.

Besides coastal protection, Bush’s record on hurricane recovery is underwhelming. He had been tapped by Gov. Greg Abbott to oversee Harvey recovery efforts, yet the process was fraught with delays, a housing backlog and questions about contracts to political donors.

Suazo is a political neophyte and lacks executive experience, but he has drive, a clear vision for the agency and impressive political instincts for a first-time candidate. He seems to better understand than Bush what not to do in office. Bush simply has had too many missteps to earn an endorsement for a second term.