STATEMENT: Hinojosa Slams Abbott for Appointing Huffines to Comptroller

Austin, TX – Today, Greg Abbott appointed Don Huffines as Texas Comptroller – installing his party’s nominee as the state’s chief financial officer months before voters weigh in this November. In response, Gina Hinojosa released the following statement:

“Greg Abbott just handed the keys to the Texas treasury to Don Huffines, the owner of Jeffrey Epstein’s New Mexico ranch, so that Texas taxpayers will pay for his campaign. 

“Last year, Abbott signed a law that lets the Comptroller spend your tax dollars on self-advertising. I fought against allowing these taxpayer-funded campaign ads, because I saw it for exactly what it was: corruption. Now Abbott’s picked the officeholder, written the rules, and handed him the checkbook – and he wants Texans to foot the bill. It’s the Greg Abbott Corruption Tax, and we all pay it.”

Abbott’s appointment fills the vacancy left by acting Comptroller Kelly Hancock, who announced his resignation this week. Huffines – who defeated Abbott’s hand-picked candidate, Hancock, in the March primary – now takes the office, entering the general election as the sitting Comptroller rather than a challenger.

The office comes with a taxpayer-funded promotional budget that Abbott himself signed into law. For decades, Texas law has barred a state agency from using “appropriated money to publicize or direct attention to an individual officer or employee of state government” (Government Code Sec. 2113.011). But buried in last year’s voucher bill was a provision (Section 29.3535 of the Education Code) that authorizes the Comptroller to spend public money on marketing and advertising, written explicitly to override that ban. The exception is no accident: it hands whoever holds the office a standing, taxpayer-financed megaphone, exactly as voters are deciding whether to keep him there.

Huffines takes over that megaphone having purchased Jeffrey Epstein’s former New Mexico ranch in 2023, which today sits at the center of an ongoing New Mexico criminal investigation into what happened there.