State Sen. Larry Taylor Decides Not to Run for Re-election Amid State Rep. Mayes Middleton Vying for the Position

Tuesday, Republican State Sen. Larry Taylor (Friendswood) announced he would not be seeking re-election to the Texas Senate, though he had originally announced his re-election efforts back in June.

Taylor is the current chairman of the Senate Education Committee and has represented Senate District 11 since 2013, having served in the Texas House of Representatives prior to that since 2003. He also currently serves as the Senate Republican Caucus chairman. Taylor is best known for his involvement in the 2019 school finance overhaul efforts.

Almost immediately after Taylor made his intentions public, Republican State Rep. Mayes Middleton (Galveston) confirmed that he filed to run for the seat. Middleton was first elected to the Texas House of Representatives in November 2018 and currently serves as the chairman of the Texas Freedom Caucus.

According to a senior reporter at Galveston County The Daily News, Taylor indicated that part of the reason he was not running is because Middleton said he intended to run for the seat. Taylor reportedly went on to say:

I tried to tell him, I’m just going to go one more time, why don’t you wait, but he’s ready to go and wanting to spend a lot of money.

Jeramy Kitchen

Jeramy Kitchen serves as the Capitol Correspondent for Texas Scorecard as well as host of 'This Week in Texas', a show previewing the week ahead in Texas politics. After managing campaigns for conservative legislators across the state, serving as Chief of Staff for multiple conservative state legislators, and serving as Legislative Director for the largest public policy think tank in Texas, Jeramy moved outside of the Austin bubble to focus on bringing transparency to the legislative process.