Tan Parker Faces Chris Russell For The Texas Senate District 12 GOP Nomination: Our Choice – The Dallas Morning News

This editorial is part of the Dallas Morning News editorial board’s slate of recommendations for the 2022 primary. Find the full project here.

The retirement of Jane Nelson, a veteran of the Texas Senate and its chief budget writer, opens the door for another Republican in the largely conservative District 12, redrawn to cover Wise County, southern Denton County and parts of Tarrant and Dallas counties. In the Republican primary, our nod goes to state Rep. Tan Parker of Flower Mound.

Parker, a 50-year-old businessman, was first elected to the Texas House in 2006, representing District 63 in southwest Denton County. He’s proved to be a productive lawmaker and a capable negotiator. He has authored multiple bills that went on to become law, including Jenna’s Law, which mandates child abuse awareness programs in Texas schools; the Britteny Sage Lindt Law, a safety measure that prohibits boaters from circling other watercraft; and Charlie’s Law, legislation that allowed Texans with chronic or terminal illnesses to access adult stem cell treatments.

In the most recent legislative cycle, Parker introduced bills with overwhelming bipartisan support. Among them was a piece of legislation that gave cryptocurrency legal status within the state’s commercial code and another that expanded access to a reentry pilot program for some state jail felony defendants and certain inmates on parole. Both became law.

Parker’s conciliatory approach marked a successful stint as chair of the House Republican Caucus in 2015, when he was lauded by Republicans and Democrats alike for easing tensions and helping his caucus improve communication with constituents. His colleagues reelected him as caucus chair in 2017.

But Parker has taken a more strident tone this election season, telling us that he favors punishing House Democrats who fled the state to protest the GOP election bill by stripping them of committee chairmanships.

He has also taken a hard-line stance on border security, championing Gov. Greg Abbott’s wall and spurning an endorsement from a conservative Latino group over its support for a legal pathway for Dreamers, those unauthorized immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children. The group, called The LIBRE Initiative, also backs a common-sense bipartisan bill in Congress that would create migrant processing centers in high-traffic areas of the border and boost the number of Customs and Border Protection officers, immigration judges and asylum officers.

We hope that if elected, Parker will once again embrace the diplomatic leadership that has served him and his constituents so well in Austin.

Also running is Chris Russell, 56, a businessman and representative of the alarm company industry. He is campaigning for term limits, but he offered no thoughtful policy proposals that should compel voters to pick him over a lawmaker as effective and seasoned as Parker. Still, we appreciated his moderate tone, and we hope he will remain involved in local politics.

Parker is the right choice for voters. The winner of this race will face a Democrat in the general election.