{"id":132,"date":"2013-05-30T19:36:00","date_gmt":"2013-05-30T19:36:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/highplainsblogger.wordpress.com\/2013\/05\/30\/so-long-mme-comptroller"},"modified":"2013-05-30T19:36:00","modified_gmt":"2013-05-30T19:36:00","slug":"so-long-mme-comptroller","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=132","title":{"rendered":"So long, Mme. Comptroller"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n<p>Susan Combs announcement that she\u2019s leaving public office serves to illustrate one of the consequences of electing all of Texas\u2019s statewide constitutional officeholders at the same time.<\/p>\n<p>Combs said she won\u2019t seek re-election as Texas comptroller of public accounts. She had planned to run for lieutenant governor \u2013 another of those constitutional offices \u2013 in 2014, but had those hopes dashed when the guy who holds the office, David Dewhurst, said he plans to seeks re-election.<\/p>\n<p>Thus, Combs has decided she\u2019s had enough of being the state\u2019s bean counter in chief.<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"http:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/2013\/05\/29\/susan-combs-wont-seek-re-election-tentative\/\" href=\"http:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/2013\/05\/29\/susan-combs-wont-seek-re-election-tentative\/\">http:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/2013\/05\/29\/susan-combs-wont-seek-re-election-tentative\/<\/a><\/p>\n<p>I can\u2019t blame her, although I actually enjoyed talking to her during the time I was working in daily journalism. She\u2019s smart, clever, personable, well-educated and well-versed on public policy.<\/p>\n<p>She also ought to consider taking her act on the road when she\u2019s all done in January 2015.<\/p>\n<p>But this idea of electing everyone at once does bring into play the waiting game that occurs every four years. When one of those folks decides either to retire or seek another office, that usually sets in motion a chain reaction. Other statewide officeholders start jockeying to run for the office that\u2019s being vacated. An incumbent staying put tends to freeze the competition in place.<\/p>\n<p>This coming year might be different. Republican Gov. Rick Perry hasn\u2019t yet announced whether he\u2019s running for re-election. Meanwhile, Republican Attorney General Greg Abbott has all but announced his candidacy for governor. I\u2019m still thinking he might know something about the governor\u2019s plans \u2013 which likely mean he won\u2019t seek another term in 2014.<\/p>\n<p>All this drama does create a strange and somewhat exciting \u2013 for the participants, at least \u2013 game of Musical Chairs.<\/p>\n<p>Cue the music.<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Susan Combs announcement that she\u2019s leaving public office serves to illustrate one of the consequences of electing all of Texas\u2019s statewide constitutional officeholders at the same time. Combs said she won\u2019t seek re-election as Texas comptroller of public accounts. She had planned to run for lieutenant governor \u2013 another of those constitutional offices \u2013 in &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=132\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">So long, Mme. Comptroller<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-132","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=132"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}