Larson backing Blanchard as his successor
During last year’s legislative session, Adam Blanchard paid a visit to Lyle Larson at the state Capitol.
Blanchard, a San Antonio trucking industry executive, wanted to talk with Larson, a six-term Republican state representative, about House Bill 19, a bill designed to protect owners of commercial vehicles from lawsuits in cases where the drivers have not been proved liable in court.
Larson was immediately struck by Blanchard’s intelligence and engaging manner.
“I told him back then, ‘Dude, we need young people like you running for office,’ ” Larson recalled this week. “And he goes, ‘Man, I couldn’t do that. I own a business and it’s growing.’ ”
In fact, Blanchard, 36, owns three businesses, including a trucking company (Double Diamond Transport) that he launched eight years ago with one truck and one trailer. The company now runs 75 trucks and 200 trailers.
A few months after their Capitol meeting, however, Larson announced that he wouldn’t seek a seventh term in the Texas House. Blanchard, at the urging of a host of friends in the business community, decided to
make a bid for Larson’s District 122 seat.
He will carry Larson’s support into the GOP primary. This week, Larson announced to the San Antonio Express-news that he is endorsing Blanchard in the GOP primary.
“He’s just a go-getter,” Larson said. “He’s the right kind of people we need in government.”
Anyone who questions Blanchard’s determination might want to consider that he played half of his senior season as the starting quarterback at Amarillo High School with a broken left fibula.
A native of Beaumont whose family moved to various parts of the state during his childhood, Blanchard got a degree from Texas Tech University School of Law and spent nearly five years as a practicing attorney before taking a U-turn and starting his own business.
“My dad is an attorney, my granddad was an attorney. It’s kind of all I knew,” Blanchard said. “When you’re practicing law, you’re only as good as your next 15 minutes or your next case. I saw my dad in his late 50s working his fingers to the bone. And I just really wanted an opportunity to build something that could last.”
Blanchard says his father instilled in him the principle that it’s vital to get engaged with your community and your industry. Along those lines, his résumé is pretty overwhelming, particularly for someone so young, who is juggling his entrepreneurial endeavors with family life and raising four sons.
He serves on the board of the Rotary Club of San Antonio, the executive committee of the San Antonio Mobility Coalition, the board of the Smithson Valley Youth Football Association and the board of the South San Antonio Chamber of Commerce. And he is chair of the Emerging Leaders Council for the Texas Trucking Association.
Those connections have enabled Blanchard to garner the support of several local business titans.
Over the first 2 ½ months of his campaign, he raised more than $289,000, easily exceeding the combined haul of his three
primary opponents: Mark Dorazio, Mark Cuthbert and former Councilwoman Elisa Chan (although Chan’s war chest has been bolstered by more than $1.2 million in personal loans she has provided to her campaign).
Blanchard says his major priorities in the Texas House will be job creation, education, reforming the property tax appraisal process, boosting highway funding and ensuring the reliability of the state power grid.
“There are so many things that we (Republicans and Democrats) can work on together,” he said. “We’ve got to make sure that all the issues we can work on together, regardless of party affiliation, that we do that for our communities.”
Blanchard’s willingness to look past partisan labels already has drawn the ire of Empower Texans, the far-right-wing organization that routinely trashed Larson and San Antonio-based former House Speaker Joe
Straus for putting policy solutions above culture war grandstanding.
Empower Texans’ publication, Texas Scorecard, ran a story Monday that attacked Blanchard for hosting a fundraiser last year for Democratic state Rep. Ray Lopez. The article, in somewhat bizarre fashion, described Lopez as a “farleft” ideologue.
“I’m here to support people that support our communities,” Blanchard said. “Ray Lopez is the former chairman of the San Antonio Mobility Coalition, which I’m on the executive committee for. He advocates for roads and highways.”
It’s a pragmatic stance that has only cemented Blanchard’s support among business leaders.
On Monday, Larson recounted a recent conversation he had with San Antonio car dealer Ernesto Ancira about Blanchard.
Ancira said Blanchard is smart, good-looking and has common sense.
He added, with tongue firmly in cheek: “Everything you didn’t have, Larson.”
Larson pretended to be offended. But he didn’t disagree.