Home > Postcards > Archives > 2008 > May > 08 > Entry
Shapiro’s interest in U.S. Senate is growing
Talk picked up on Thursday surrounding state Sen. Florence Shapiro, R-Plano, and a possible run for the U.S. Senate if Kay Bailey Hutchison comes home to run for governor.
Bryan Eppstein, a consultant to Shapiro, says, “At this time it’s just an interest in running and it’s a growing interest.” Eppstein also threw in the obligatory “she’s getting encouraged to run” bit.
Here’s how the scenario might play out: Hutchison leaves the Senate in 2009 to run for governor. Gov. Rick Perry then appoints someone to fill her seat, but there is an election in 2010 (some say it might be sooner than that) in which the voters would decide who the next senator is. Shapiro, assuming she’s not the person appointed by Perry (or even if she is) would jump into that race.
Texas Weekly reporteded Thursday that she’s planning to form an exploratory committee. Eppstein wouldn’t directly answer whether she has such plans.
Shapiro’s move could materialize about a year after she told the American-Statesman’s Gardner Selby that she’d welcome a chance to be in the U.S. Senate.
“It is a position obviously that anybody that’s an elected official would covet,” she said in April 2007. “It’s not something I’ve even been planning at all to date … I haven’t really thought about it very much.”
At the time she had just lunched with Roger Staubach in Dallas and he had urged her to run.
Comments
Click here to report comment abuse.
By Brent
May 9, 2008 8:49 AM | Link to this
I would be leary of anyone that Rick Perry would chose to replace KBH. He would certainly expect something in return.Shapiro may want the Senator’s job so badly she may compromise the ethics she may have remaining.She already has those she has to repay.How long does it take for big money lobbyists to change the value system of a new Senator in Washington? With politics the way they are in Texas at this time, one can only imagine what else the taxpayers of the state will have to give up with a rookie senator. Already,Shapiro has “friends” she takes care of in the state.
By Larrywp
May 9, 2008 8:17 AM | Link to this
I just want to know what her position is on THE FAIR TAX ACT (Senate Bill 25). Hutchison is against it, which means she is a typical “power-enhancing” politician who wants to use the Income Tax system to garner political power.
John Cornyn, on the other hand, is a Sponsor of the THE FAIR TAX ACT, and is clearly someone who is interested in the true welfare of his constituents and in the long-term health of his nation.
If Shapiro is in favor of THE FAIR TAX ACT, then she will get my vote, and many, many more who are active proponents of the FAIR TAX. If she does not, then we will find someone else who is truly interested in the financial health of the United States, Texas and the people who live here.
By TX Dem
May 8, 2008 7:22 PM | Link to this
Bryan Eppstein is an idiot
By Dan Cain
May 8, 2008 7:19 PM | Link to this
The unbridled ambition and opportunism, disguised as a need to “serve the public” by politicians never ceases to amaze. The more comically tragic instance here is that a state senator from Plano, Texas has herself convinced she would be a viable candidate. I presume she is from the Rick Perry school of hobnailed boot politics.
By Dave
May 8, 2008 7:01 PM | Link to this
Especially given how much she’ll depend on Washington money to fund her primary campaign. Rick has most of the big money locked up here, and Kay can raise a lot more money there as a senator than as an EX-senator.
By Effigy
May 8, 2008 6:48 PM | Link to this
One small problem with the above analysis, KBH does not have to give up her U.S. Senate seat in 2009 to run for governor. Unlike 2006, when she was up for re-election as a U.S. Senator, if she had decided to run for governor, she would have been required to give up her U.S. Senate because she could not have been on listed on the same ballot twice (Governor & U.S. Senator). So if she does run for governor in 2010, it makes no sense to resign her senate seat but instead run for governor as a sitting U.S. Senator who is not up for re-election until 2012.