Our recommendation in Kay Granger’s GOP primary for Fort Worth congressional seat
A strong primary challenge after years of cruising to re-election can reveal an incumbent’s weaknesses. But it can remind voters of the strengths that they’ve valued in the incumbent, too.
Rep. Kay Granger faces just such a challenge from staunch conservative Chris Putnam, her first serious re-election battle since she went to Congress in 1996.
Granger has a decades-long record of delivering for Fort Worth. She’s at the peak of her clout, and if Republicans win control of the House, she could take one of the most powerful positions in Washington: chairwoman of the House Appropriations Committee. It would be short-sighted to throw her out of office now, especially based on narrow ideological complaints.
BEHIND THE STORY
MOREHey, who is behind these endorsements?
Members of the Editorial Board, which serves as the Fort Worth Star-Telegram’s institutional voice, decide candidates and positions to recommend to voters. The members of the board are: Cynthia M. Allen, columnist; Steve Coffman, editor and president; Bud Kennedy, columnist; Ryan J. Rusak, opinion editor; and Nicole Russell, opinion writer.
Members of our Community Advisory Board may also participate in candidate interviews and offer their views, but they do not vote on which candidate to recommend.
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How does the process work?
The Editorial Board interviews candidates, asking about positions on issues, experience and qualifications, and how they would approach holding the office for which they are running. Board members do additional research on candidates’ backgrounds and the issues at hand. After that, members discuss the candidates and generally aim to arrive at a consensus, though not necessarily unanimity. All members contribute observations and ideas, so the resulting editorials represent the board’s view, not a particular writer.
How do partisanship and ideology factor in?
We’re not tied to one party or the other, and our positions on issues range across the ideological spectrum. We tend to prefer candidates who align with our previously stated positions, but qualifications, temperament and experience are important, too.
The 77-year-old lawmaker, seeking her 13th term, has been a stalwart on defense issues, and not just protecting jobs at Lockheed Martin and Bell Helicopter. She’s deeply engaged in military needs and works to keep American forces well-equipped and cared for.
In recent years, she’s taken a high-profile role on border security, too, helping to craft policy to respond to the periodic surges of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border.
Granger’s critics tag her as both a big spender and insufficiently responsive to the border crisis. The congresswoman notes that she has worked to fund construction of border barriers where it makes sense, along with beefing up agencies’ capacity to deal with the influx of migrants.
Last week brought reminders of the need for vigilance and a steady hand on these issues. The Trump administration revealed plans to divert money from several defense programs, including the F-35 fighter built in Fort Worth and the V-22 tilt-rotor aircraft on which Bell is a partner, to pay for more border wall construction. Putnam traced the blame to Republican failures to fund the wall when they held the House in the first two years of Trump’s term — and laid it right at Granger’s feet.
The diversion decision is baffling, but if the F-35 and V-22 need defending, Fort Worth will want a senior lawmaker with bipartisan relationships and ties to the president, not a freshman still learning the ropes.
News also broke last week that Fort Worth’s increasingly beleaguered Panther Island project would receive no substantial federal money. The flood control and development project is largely stuck until the feds pay to dig a bypass channel for the Trinity River.
Granger has taken her share of blows over Panther Island, in part because her son, J.D. Granger, has a high-paying job with the board that oversees it. Skepticism about that is understandable, but the rhetoric has gotten out of hand, with unfounded charges of corruption flying at the congresswoman.
We’re more concerned that, for all her power, Granger hasn’t been able to secure funding to address Fort Worth’s major flooding concern. She told us last week that the blame lies with White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, who is also director of the Office of Management and Budget, for changing how the office evaluates U.S. Army Corps of Engineers projects. Her lobbying of Mulvaney and his top deputy apparently hasn’t worked.
That’s disappointing, but it’s not a reason to turn Granger out of office. As Granger said, the only realistic option for the project is the funding that Congress and the Corps have approved, so she and other Texas lawmakers must find a way to finish the job.
Putnam, 50, a retired businessman and former Colleyville City Council member, has hit Granger on these issues and more. One consistent theme has been that the incumbent isn’t sufficiently pro-life. Granger admits that she was pro-choice earlier in her career but contends that a pro-life colleague won her over. Her voting record over the last decade reflects that, as does an endorsement from a major national anti-abortion group.
Other criticisms have faded as well. Putnam started the campaign noting the congresswoman’s initial reluctance to back Trump in the 2016 campaign — an attack that fizzled when Trump unequivocally endorsed Granger.
Putnam, who declined our invitation for an interview, has run a robust campaign that’s reaching hard-line conservatives who have had gripes with Granger for a while. And after more than two decades in office, it’s good for Granger to be put through her paces.
But Fort Worth has too much at stake to give up the power she’s steadily acquired. Republicans should renominate Kay Granger.