As Abbott cites O’Rourke’s ‘pro-Russia’ vote in Congress, Democrat compares Texas governor to Putin

AUSTIN — Gov. Greg Abbott is dredging up Beto O’Rourke’s votes on Ukraine as a freshman congressman eight years ago to cast the Democrat as “pro-Russia.”

Also, citing O’Rourke’s 2015 vote against a bill that would have made it easier to export liquefied natural gas and his support two years ago for then-presidential candidate Joe Biden, Abbott’s campaign is labeling O’Rourke an enemy of Texas’ oil and gas industry.

O’Rourke, who’s trying to end an Abbott winning streak that has kept the Republican in statewide office for about a quarter-century, has countered that the two-term governor is a lot like Russian president Vladimir Putin.

Democracy is “under attack here in the state of Texas,” where Abbott and GOP lawmakers have made it harder for people to cast votes, just as Russia is attacking democracy in Europe, O’Rourke said last week.

The governor even “has his own oligarch,” the former El Paso congressman said. O’Rourke was referring to Abbott supporter and Dallas energy-pipeline magnate Kelcy Warren.

Warren has sued O’Rourke for defamation for saying he took advantage of last year’s Texas freeze to make exorbitant profits on natural gas before rewarding Abbott with a $1 million political contribution. Warren has said he simply was trying to help Abbott fend off self-funding Dallas millionaire Don Huffines in the GOP primary for governor.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine may seem a world away, but the war and its implications are being felt across America, including Texas, where the two major-party gubernatorial candidates are talking – or being forced to talk – about it.

Though Abbott’s the one pushing the issue, experts disagreed over whether it’ll motivate or persuade many Texans. Early voting doesn’t start for seven months – Oct. 24 – making it hard to assess how contained the Ukraine conflict will be and whether it will generate huge political fallout.

“Conflict in Europe is going to be a pretty tangential issue in the governor’s race,” said

Southern Methodist University political science professor Matthew Wilson.

“The only thing that it does highlight is the respective candidates’ judgment,” he said. “They can talk about past and current positions with regard to Russia as indicators of their own and their opponent’s political intuition and values and judgment. It could play a role, but it’s likely to be a marginal one.”

The University of Houston’s Brandon Rottinghaus, though, said that while Ukraine might not be the central issue in the O’Rourke-Abbott battle, “it’s going to be indexed into larger problems that the Democrats face with an unpopular president. … It’ll kind of flow into that.” He cited gasoline prices, inflation and energy-related controversies.

‘Speaks volumes’

For several months, Abbott has been testing attack lines on O’Rourke. The “jab” on Ukraine figures into Abbott’s push to link his Democratic foe to Biden, while reminding voters of the Biden administration’s restrictions on drilling, opposition to certain oil pipelines and the recent price surge at the gas pump, Rottinghaus said.

“From health to energy to regulations, there’s a host of grievances that Republicans have against Joe Biden,” he said. “Abbott’s strategy is going to be to use those against O’Rourke.”

Abbott is pressing the issue. Two days after Russian forces swept into Ukraine, the governor asked all Texas retailers, package stores and restaurateurs to voluntarily stop selling Russian products. “Texas stands with Ukraine,” he tweeted.

“Obviously toothless, but it sent a signal that this is something he’s hoping to capitalize on,” Rottinghaus said.

The following week, a day after Abbott dispatched seven fellow Republicans to win outright his party’s nomination for a third term, Dave Carney, his top political strategist, said Ukraine will be an issue in the fall contest. He cited O’Rourke’s U.S. House votes in the aftermath of Russia’s February 2014 invasion of Crimea.

In late March of that year, O’Rourke was one of just two House Democrats to vote against a bill that provided $1 billion in loan guarantees for Ukraine and imposed sanctions on Russian officials. He was one of 12 lawmakers to vote against promoting U.S. media like Radio Free Europe and Voice of America in the region. In December 2014, he was one of 10 House members to vote against a resolution chiding Putin for “aggression against neighboring countries.”

“How he voted when he was in the House, to be one of a handful, less than 10 Democrats, to support Putin’s invasion of the Crimea peninsula and not do anything to fight back, it just speaks volumes to his world view,” Carney said of O’Rourke. “And so fortunately for us, very bad for Ukrainians and Europeans, I think Ukraine is going to be a legitimate topic that people are going to care about in the next 249 days.”

Carney conflated O’Rourke’s votes with outright support for Russian aggression, a claim unsupported by contemporary records. However, last week, O’Rourke declined to explain or elaborate on post-Crimean annexation votes.

As in 2014 and during his short-lived presidential campaign in 2019, O’Rourke ducked chances to explain to reporters his rationale for the votes. In March 2014, the Washington Post cast the 19 votes against the aid-for-Ukraine bill as “a mix of isolationists, fiscal conservatives and liberals opposed to foreign interventions.” At the time, O’Rourke was said by his staff to be traveling and unavailable for comment.

In 2019, the online publication The Daily Beast, writing about the votes, also failed to obtain a comment from O’Rourke.

The online publication sought context for O’Rourke’s votes by reviewing public statements he made about Russia as a member of the House Armed Services Committee. Some were about Syria. More than once, O’Rourke said he was worried about unintended consequences of U.S. interventions in foreign countries, such as the CIA’s program to arm and finance the Mujahideen in Afghanistan from 1979 to 1992, The Daily Beast said. The Mujahideen ended up driving the Soviet Union from Afghanistan but turned the country into a haven for Islamic militants, some of whom successfully plotted the Sept. 11, 2011, attacks on the U.S.

Carney, the Abbott strategist, said O’Rourke’s 2014 votes related to Ukraine would hurt him with independent voters. Abbott spokeswoman Renae Eze said O’Rourke “is clearly trying to hide his dangerous pro-Russia voting record,” which she and Carney said raises questions about his judgment.

Eze accused O’Rourke of being hostile to the fossil-fuels industry, and especially “hydraulic fracturing” used to extract oil and gas in shale belts. That caused him not to care about leaving Ukraine dependent on Russia for much of its energy, she said.

Eze cited O’Rourke’s vote against the 2015 bill promoting LNG exports. At the time, O’Rourke wrote that there were too many unanswered questions about fracking’s effects on groundwater for the U.S to be expanding natural gas exports. Congress first “should enhance safety and environmental protections,” he said.

Eze, though, said O’Rourke and Biden “both have actively worked to slow progress for LNG exports from the U.S., leading to worldwide energy dependence on hostile nations like Russia. True American energy independence runs through the oil and gas fields of Texas, not through Venezuela, Iran, or Moscow.”

‘Some real parallels’

O’Rourke said he fully supports Ukraine in the current conflict. Citing a need for national unity, though, he said now is the wrong time to discuss his past criticisms of U.S. foreign policy.

“I, like I hope everyone in Texas, fully back the people of Ukraine who are fighting against extraordinarily long odds, and so far, are prevailing against Russia,” O’Rourke said at an Austin news conference.

“I support our president and making sure that this country does everything it can, including convening our partners within our alliances in NATO, to give Ukraine and President [Volodymyr] Zelensky the support that they need to be able to hold these invaders at bay for as long as it takes to ultimately repel them,” he said. “There’s a time and a place to argue over previous policies that this country has taken. Right now, as we are on the brink of a serious crisis in Europe, … is not the time to do that.”

Referring to last year’s controversial Texas election law changes and reported profits by Warren’s Energy Transfer Partners of $2.4 billion in the wake of the state’s February 2021 electricity outages, O’Rourke said, “I see some real parallels from what’s happening in Europe right now to what is taking place in Texas.”

Abbott, though he was silent about former President Donald Trump’s withholding of U.S. military aid to Ukraine in 2019, which factored into Trump’s first impeachment, has made an elaborate show of support for the embattled Ukrainians in recent weeks.

He bathed the Governor’s Mansion in blue and yellow lights, the colors of Ukraine’s flag. He declared March 13 a statewide day of prayer for Ukraine, victim of an “unprovoked and unjustified invasion.” And he and first lady Cecilia Abbott attended “divine liturgy” at a Ukrainian Catholic church in Houston.

Reviewing Carney and Eze’s statements, UH’s Rottinghaus said it’s easy to imagine an ad or mailer the Abbott campaign might produce casting O’Rourke as soft on Russia and so green in his environmental policies that he fostered European dependence on Russia’s natural gas.

“It’s going to be a way to attack Joe Biden, which is an indirect attack on O’Rourke but hurts nonetheless,” he said.

The only recent example of foreign policy-related issues looming large in a Texas governor’s race was then-Gov. Rick Perry’s decision to air TV spots attacking his 2002 Democratic opponent, Laredo banker Tony Sanchez, on a border topic, Rottinghaus said. The Perry ads said Sanchez invested in banks “that had been indirectly related to some money laundering for drug trafficking,” which Perry linked to Mexican drug cartels’ 1985 murder of federal Drug Enforcement Administration agent Kiki Camarena, he recalled.

“It was a stretch, but it was powerful,” he said.

SMU’s Wilson said that while immigration and trade with Mexico could be the rare foreign-policy issue that has salience in a Texas gubernatorial race, “those are going to be second-order issues.”

Neither Abbott nor O’Rourke “has much at risk here, frankly, from the Ukraine situation,” said Wilson, adding that O’Rourke would be better off hitting Abbott for his ties to Trump than drawing parallels between Abbott and Putin.

“Trying to bring up Trump’s call with Zelensky is a better tack, frankly, than essentially trying to suggest similarities between Greg Abbott and Vladimir Putin,” the political scientist said. “That’s a bit much.”

“By the time that we get to the fall campaign, and people are actually voting in October and November, anything having to do with Ukraine is going to be pretty far down the totem pole of the issues that will decide the Texas governor’s election,” Wilson said.