Todd Staples

Douglas Todd Staples (born August 24, 1963)^[1] is the former two-term Texas Commissioner of Agriculture. He did not seek reelection in 2014 but instead unsuccessfully sought the Republican nomination for lieutenant governor.

Prior to his election in 2006 as agriculture commissioner, Staples had served as a Republican in both houses of the Texas State Legislature and in a nonpartisan position on the city council in Palestine in Anderson County, Texas.

Staples was unopposed for renomination in the GOP primary held on March 2, 2010. In the November 2 general election, he handily defeated the populist Democrat Hank Gilbert (born 1959) of Whitehouse and the Libertarian Party choice, Rick Donaldson of Rockwall County. Gilbert had also lost to Staples in 2006.

On September 18, 2014, Staples announced that he would resign by mid-November to become president of the Texas Oil & Gas Association, following a controversy surrounding his views on a "Meatless Monday" campaign being adopted by some Texas schools.^[2]

Background

Staples was reared in Palestine, the seat of government of his native Anderson County in East Texas. He graduated from Palestine High School, where he was an active member of the Future Farmers of America. While in college, he served from 1981 to 1982 as state vice-president of the FFA. He attended Texas A&M University in College Station and graduated magna cum laude in 1984 with a Bachelor of Science in Agricultural Economics.^[3] He started a plant nursery and later became involved in cattle ranching with his family. He also owned a real estate business. For a time, he was an instructor at Trinity Valley Community College in Palestine.

Staples has two adult children from his first marriage, which ended in divorce.^[4] His son, Jared Cole Staples (born 1987), is an attorney who was worked for the governor's office in Austin, and his daughter, Elizabeth Ann Staples (born 1989) resides in Denver, Colorado. His second wife is the former Janet Wendel (born c. 1953), a daughter of Laura Linder Wendel (1928-2001) and Frank Lee Wendel (1924-2011), a native of Falls County and resident of Madisonville in Madison County, a long-term employee of Lone Star Gas Company, and a decorated soldier in World War II. From her first marriage to Terry Maurice Thorn (born 1951) of Palestine, Janet Staples has two sons, Brian Walker Thorn (born 1979) and Jonathan Clarke Thorn (born 1982). These are Todd Staples' stepsons.^[5]

Staples is a Southern Baptist deacon in his local church.

Political career

Staples served on the non-partisan Palestine City Council from 1989 to 1991. In February 1995, he was elected to the Texas House of Representatives District 11 seat in a special election to replace Elton Bomer, who had been appointed state insurance commissioner by newly elected Governor George W. Bush. In a contest against two Democrats, Staples avoided a runoff by about sixty votes, having collected 50.6 percent of the vote.

In 2000, Staples entered the race for the District 3 seat in the Texas Senate, vacated by Drew Nixon. Despite personal scandal surrounding Nixon, Staples held the seat for the Republican Party, having received more than 60 percent of the vote in the general election. He represented Anderson, Angelina, Cherokee, Hardin, Henderson, Jasper, Nacogdoches, Newton, Polk, Sabine, San Augustine, San Jacinto, Shelby and Tyler counties, and portions of Montgomery and Smith counties.

In the Senate, Staples was the chairman of the Transportation & Homeland Security Committee, the Workers Compensation Select Interim Committee and the Texas Senate Republican Caucus. Staples sponsored and helped to pass a state constitutional amendment defining marriage as between one man and one woman. He was the vice-chair of the State Affairs Committee and the Veteran Affairs & Military Installations Committee.

Staples was unopposed for the Republican nomination for Agriculture Commissioner in 2006 when the incumbent Susan Combs instead was elected Texas Comptroller to succeed Carole Strayhorn. Staples defeated Democrat Hank Gilbert and Libertarian Clay Woolam in the November 7, 2006, general election. He received 2,307,406 votes (54.77 percent), a margin of 547,000 votes over Gilbert.^[6]

In 2010, Staples ran for re-election as Agriculture Commissioner and won with more than 60 percent of the votes, again against Democrat Hank Gilbert.^[7]

On June 5, 2013, Staples addressed the 25th annual conference of the North American Agricultural Biotechnology Council held in College Station. In the keynote address Staples said that the American public has little understanding of what is physically required to produce the needed food and fiber because shelves in grocery stores are always full. He claimed that many fail to understand the importance of agriculture to Texas, which has the largest population of rural citizens in the nation and leads in the production of both beef and cotton. Such misunderstanding, he added, can during times of drought lead to conflict between municipalities and agricultural producers over the available water resources. While water usage declined by 40 percent between 1974 and 2010, the output of cattle, cotton, and corn has doubled since 1960, he noted.^[3]

Staples explained that in his role as commissioner he is compelled to tell the story of agricultural success: "It's up to us to engage with consumers because we know there are those who do not appreciate the work that's being done and what that means for available and affordable food supply."^[3]

On September 18, Staples announced his resignation by up to six weeks before the expiration of his term to become the president of the Texas Oil & Gas Association. His resignation came ten days after publication of a controversial op-ed piece he wrote for the Austin-American Statesman in which he claimed that the "Meatless Monday" initiative being observed by some Texas schools was a "carefully orchestrated campaign" perpetrated by "activists ... tied to anti-animal agriculture campaigns." A week later, a nutritional fact sheet recommending beans as a viable alternative to meat disappeared from the website of the Texas Department of Agriculture.^[8]

2014 primary for lieutenant governor

Though Staples enlisted baseball great Nolan Ryan as his campaign chairman, he finished third in the primary for lieutenant governor with 235,981 votes (17.8 percent).^[9] Voters set forth a runoff for the position between the three-term incumbent David Dewhurst of Houston, who trailed the top votegetter, State Senator Dan Patrick, also of Houston. In fourth place was the outgoing commissioner of the Texas General Land Office, Jerry E. Patterson, a former state senator who had also run against Dewhurst for land commissioner in the 1998 Republican primary; Dewhurst won that round, but Patterson succeeded Dewhurst as land commissioner in 2002, when Dewhurst was first elected lieutenant governor.

At a gathering in College Station in January 2014, Staples cited his experience at both the municipal and state levels of government and his support for the Texas constitutional amendment to define marriage as between one man and one woman. Staples said that most politicians "are not listening to the people of this country. That's the reason our nation has gone a different direction and left our values and left where we are."^[10]

Staples said that had he been elected lieutenant governor, he would not have compromised his conservative views. He claimed on the anniversary of the War on Poverty, launched by another Texan, Lyndon B. Johnson, that the program has created "a sense of entitlement that should frighten each of us because that's not what the American dream is all about." ^[10]

Staples outlined a six-point plan to reform Texas immigration, with an emphasis on border security but no amnesty. Staples said that as agriculture commissioner he has found funding to place cameras connected to cellphones at strategic locations along the border. This action undertaken from 2012 to 2014, he said, netted some 21,000 illegal aliens and 47 tons of narcotics.^[10]

Left in the runoff to succeed Staples as the Republican nominee for agriculture commissioner are former State Representatives Sid Miller of Stephenville and Tommy Merritt of Longview, who finished first and second, respectively, in the March 4 primary. Eliminated from the race are Eric Opelia, a former executive director of the Texas Republican Party from Austin and Karnes City, Joe Cotten of Frisco, and J. Allen Carnes, the mayor of Uvalde.^[9] Miller went on to defeat Merritt in the runoff election and then to win handily the general election on November 4, 2014.

Positions

Same-sex Marriage

In 2003, Staples sponsored a bill that prohibited the State of Texas from recognizing same-sex marriages, then again in 2005, sponsored and campaigned for another bill that successfully amended the Texas Constitution to limit marriage to one man and one woman. In April 2010, more than three years after he left office as a state Senator, he joined a lawsuit attempting to appeal a divorce granted to a gay couple in Dallas, Texas. Staples was not connected to the case, other than being the current Agriculture Commissioner for the State of Texas.^[11]

In September, 2013, the City of San Antonio, Texas, proposed to amend its anti-discrimination law to include protections for gay, lesbian, and transgender residents. Staples made it clear that he believes this law would discriminate against those residents with deeply held religious views: "I consider this an attempt to impose a liberal value system over the objection of millions of Texans. It actually discriminates against those with deeply held religious views by pushing this agenda to the extreme."^[12]

Electoral history

2010

Texas general election, 2006: Texas Commissioner of Agriculture[4] Party Candidate Votes % -Republican Todd Staples 2,9573,406 60.82% -Democratic Hank Gilbert 1,738,456 35.79% -Libertarian Clay Woolam 164,035 3.37%

Turnout 4,856,266

2006

2002

2000

2000

References

External links

• Campaign site