San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
Candidate’s father looms large in contest
AMARILLO — Caroline Fairly can’t seem to escape the question. It came up during a recent radio interview, for one, and then at a candidate forum in Amarillo, where she’s running for the state House.
Is your father attempting to buy a spot in the Legislature?
“My dad, I’m very proud of him,” Fairly told a scattered crowd at First Family Church, responding to a submitted question.
“The thing is, my dad’s not running for House of Representatives,” she said. “I’m running.”
Beyond the Panhandle, the race has statewide significance as one of nearly two dozen across Texas that will decide the fate of Gov. Greg Abbott’s school voucher plan. Fairly is the staunchest supporter of the policy in the three-way GOP primary that also features a well-known real estate agent and an oil and gas executive who serves on the local school board.
But also looming large over the race is Fairly’s father, a prominent Amarillo businessman who has donated lavishly in recent years to GOP candidates and conservative causes. Last year, Alex Fairly pledged $20 million to create an institute at West Texas A&M in Amarillo that promotes faith and family values.
Backing Caroline Fairly is a who’s who of Texas Republicans, including Abbott, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, Attorney General Ken Paxton and U.S. Rep. Ronny Jackson — most of whom have collected hefty donations from her father. Caroline Fairly has not received any direct donations from Alex Fairly, but her campaign has taken in tens of thousands of dollars from his political allies and employees at his companies.
The district is bright red, so whoever wins the March 5 primary is all but certain to clinch the November election.
‘Putting in the work’
At 25, Caroline Fairly would become the youngest Republican woman ever elected to the Texas House, according to the Texas Legislative Library — setting a new mark by about four years.
Her experience includes working in Washington for Jackson, who was supported by a super PAC that received $300,000 from Alex Fairly in 2020. She is now a medical negotiator at the OccuNet Co., one of her father’s businesses.
Caroline Fairly said the negotiating experience would help her make deals in the Legislature, and that she’d observed how to be a “strong leader” from Jackson.
On the campaign trail, she hammers on broad ideas popular among Republican voters, saying the border is a “generational crisis,” parents need to be empowered, public schools are pushing “woke” content on children and President Joe Biden is ruining the country.
“Our faith, God, that is the only hope we have as a state or nation,” she said.
The church auditorium burst into applause when she said at the Feb. 1 candidate forum that while she’s guided by her conservatism, it’s dwarfed in importance by her Christianity.
Her father isn’t on the campaign trail with her, but his presence is felt. In the radio interview, she was asked to respond to a local article that points out her father’s previous campaign donations to politicians who endorsed her.
Alex Fairly is CEO of the Fairly Group, which runs several insurance companies, and is so well known in the community that many at the candidate forum referred to him simply as “Alex.” A longtime staple of local politics, he opted out of running for Amarillo mayor last year, telling a local TV station he intends to be involved, but that “my best place is outside the political realm.”
In recent years, he has increasingly donated to statewide and national Republicans. In September, he gave $50,000 to the Ted Cruz Victory Fund and $31,700 to the National Republican Senatorial Committee, federal filings show. His company DealOn LLC has contributed $300,000 to Paxton and $350,000 to Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick within the last two years, according to their campaign finance reports. He didn’t respond to a request for comment made through his business.
Caroline Fairly often responds to questions about her father the same: He has not donated to her campaign; she worked hard to earn the endorsements of Paxton, Cruz and the rest; and the implication that those endorsements were bought is insulting to those men.
“When I started thinking about running, I knew that this would happen,” Fairly said in the radio interview, going on to say that she’d told her dad not to donate to her and that she earned Cruz’s support only after a “40minute interrogation.”
“I’m putting in the miles,” she said. “I’m putting in the work, and, frankly, the people who know me and have sat down with me, they know my heart and they know why I’m running.”
Big-name endorsements
The open race for this Panhandle seat is one of 21 that could tip the scales for private school vouchers in Texas.
The seat is being vacated by Rep. Four Price, who held the office since 2011 and was among the 21 GOP rebels who defied Abbott last year by sinking his plan to let families use public dollars to pay for private school.
Abbott visited Amarillo on Feb. 2 to stump in person for Fairly, the only one in the race who supports his voucher plan without reservation.
There was no stage at the roped-off area in the front of Tyler’s Barbeque in Amarillo, so the crowd of well over 100 pressed forward, standing on tiptoes and leaning from side to side to catch glimpses of the speakers, who were illuminated by a neon redand-white Lone Star Beer sign above them.
“You can be the biggest help to me by sending reinforcements to me in the form of Caroline Fairly,” Abbott said. “She and I are going to work together to build a conservative bulwark to protect Texas and make sure that we keep Texas the land of opportunity and the land of freedom.”
Jackson offered his own, far more personal endorsement.
Fairly was the first to join his 2020 campaign for Congress outside of his wife, Jackson said, and the three of them spent hours driving in his truck around the 40,000-square-mile district.
“I believe you can tell a lot about a person in their children,” Jackson told the crowd. “So I can tell you a lot about my friend Alex Fairly because I know his daughter Caroline Fairly and what she’s truly made of.”
Jackson cast her age as a strength.
“That’s good that she’s young,” he said. “She’s energetic, she’s enthusiastic, she’s smart.”
Sheriff Chanze Fowler of Hartley County stood near the back of the restaurant, with his height and the extra inches of lift from his cowboy boots helping him look out over the heads of the crowd.
Although Fowler came to town from the neighboring Texas House district, he said he supported Fairly. He liked how unafraid she was to acknowledge her Christian faith, and he described her as the leading candidate “because her name is out there the most.”
“I think she’s got experience enough to do this,” he said. “Sometimes you need some young people with some new ideas and the energy to push it through.”
‘Learn by doing’
Before the Feb. 1 candidate forum, Fairly and her two challengers stood in the entryway of the church, chatting with voters. When they passed one another, they smiled and greeted one another by name.
Cindi Bulla is a local real estate agent who has served in leadership and policy positions in the state and National Association of Realtors. Richard Beyea, an oil and gas executive, is a school board member at Perryton Independent School District.
Bulla and Beyea have said they do not support a voucher program that would give all K-12 students public funds to spend on private education. But they said they were willing to discuss a more limited plan with extra accountability provisions.
The two said Panhandle voters appreciated that they are running clean races and avoiding invective — at least for now.
“It’s coming. We know it’s coming. But the nastiness hasn’t gotten off the ground here yet,” Bulla said. The amount of money going into the race will inevitably create conflict, she said.
In addition to the most highprofile endorsements, Fairly far surpasses her opponents in fundraising and spending, although she and Bulla each had $113,000 cash on hand near the end of January.
Bulla’s biggest donation was $75,000 from the Texas Realtors PAC. Beyea reported raising zero dollars in the second half of last year.
The candidates didn’t bash each other during the forum, but on stage, the tension sometimes broke through.
“You read the résumé — guys, you have to learn by doing,” Beyea said of his own work experience, stressing the final word. “None of this comes easy. We know this.”
At least one person in the crowd felt Fairly had more to learn about campaigning.
The forum began with the moderator posing a “doozy” question: What’s your favorite color? Bulla and Beyea named red, the official color of the GOP. Fairly went a different direction: blue, the color of Democrats.
Afterward, an older woman in a colorful sweater approached Fairly, complimenting her on her “spunk” for her answer about her father.
But she had one note.
“Next time they ask your favorite color, it’s red.”