“Does this bore you?”
I have spent more than two decades working in and around Texas government, and I was shocked by what happened next.
A woman testifying before the Texas Railroad Commission asked Commissioner Wayne Christian the question directly.
“Yes,” he answered. Recently, Christian joined Commissioner Jim Wright in eliminating the regular opportunity for Texans to comment on matters not included on the commission’s agenda unless a commissioner requests it. Chair Christi Craddick voted no.
It was the latest startling example of something we are increasingly seeing in Texas politics: Public officials who seem to have forgotten that the people appearing before them are not interruptions to their work. They work for us.
I saw another version of that disconnect at a livestreamed public forum on data centers in Wichita Falls.
Local State Rep. James Frank told the audience that constituents with concerns could meet with him. The response came quickly from across the room: They had tried. Frank believed he was offering access. His constituents were telling him the door had not been open.
The same frustration is playing out as landowners fight the state’s planned 765-KV transmission lines.
Thousands of Texans have submitted comments and protests. Landowners have organized across county lines. Local officials and legislators have objected. Administrative law judges recommended denying a major application because the utilities failed to meet key requirements. Yet the Public Utility Commission has approved advancing the buildout.
Texas needs reliable electricity and infrastructure capable of supporting our increasing population and economy, and State officials sometimes must make difficult decisions that will not satisfy everyone.
But Texans are entitled to more than an opportunity to speak into a record no one intends to consider.
If thousands of public comments, organized opposition, legislative concern, and the conclusions of the state’s own administrative judges cannot significantly affect the process, what is public participation supposed to accomplish?
Then there is Gov. Greg Abbott.
Abbott recently told a national audience that data-center companies created their own problems by failing to gain support from the communities where they planned to build.
That sounds reassuring—until you ask what authority rural communities have to withhold their approval.
Texas counties generally have no zoning authority. In 2023, Abbott signed House Bill 2127, the so-called “Death Star” law, further restricting cities’ and counties’ ability to regulate businesses locally.
The law was not written specifically for data centers. But it reinforced a governing philosophy that has taken hold in Texas: Austin knows best.
For years, Texas leaders recruited data centers and offered them generous tax incentives. They maintained a system in which rural counties have little power to decide where large industrial projects belong or how they should operate.
Now those same leaders want to talk about community approval.
Approval requires authority.
You cannot take power away from our local communities and then blame companies for failing to obtain their permission.
This is not an argument against growth, technology, or economic development. Rural Texas needs investment, jobs and reliable electricity.
It is an argument about who our elected officials answer to.
Too many Texas politicians have begun acting as though they answer to the industries seeking permits, the lobbyists roaming the Capitol and the donors funding campaigns. Meanwhile, the people whose land, water, homes, and communities will bear the consequences are treated as another box to check in the approval process.
They can speak at a hearing—unless the hearing no longer accepts public comment.
They can ask to meet with their representative— even when they have already tried.
They can submit written comments by the thousands—without knowing whether anyone with the power to decide will give those comments any weight.
They can be told that projects require community approval— without being given the authority to approve or reject them.
Taken separately, each episode can be explained away: a rude answer, a frustrated audience, a complicated transmission proceeding, or a governor changing direction as public opposition grows.
Taken together, they reveal something much harder to ignore.
I have been talking with rural Texans about their concerns and the direction of our state. One respondent put the growing frustration more plainly than any policy analysis could: “We’ve been sold out.” I understand why people feel that way.
Texans do not expect to win every fight. We know elected officials sometimes must make decisions we will not like.
But we expect an honest process. We expect them to listen before making decisions, explain who benefits and who pays, and demonstrate that public participation can still affect the outcome.
Most of all, we expect them to remember whom they work for.
The people in Austin are not our rulers. They are our representatives.
It should never take a citizen standing at a microphone to remind them of that.
About the Author Suzanne Bellsnyder is editor and publisher of the Hansford County Reporter-Statesman and Sherman County Gazette. A former Capitol staffer with decades of experience in Texas politics and policy, she now focuses on how state decisions shape rural life through her newspapers and Texas Rural Reporter column. Subscribe at Tex a s R u ra l Re p o rt e r. Substack. com.