Now retired, Tom Glass has taken on a new career—holding politicians accountable to the Constitution.
Each legislative session, Tom can be found at the Texas Capitol, promoting constitutional principles in committee hearings. Upon retiring from Exxon-Mobil, Tom and his wife specifically chose the Bastrop area so they would be only 40 miles from the pink dome.
Tom has founded multiple grassroots organizations, including the Texas Constitutional Enforcement Group and the Texas Legislative Priorities Group, in an effort to educate fellow citizens on the issues facing us today.
Most recently, Tom ran for state representative in House District 17. Although he lost the primary, he says his campaign reinforced the need to communicate the issues at hand to the voting base.
“There are zillions, a significant number of low-information Republican primary voters. Their heart is in the right place to a certain extent, but not enough for them to do their homework on state and local races.”
Changing the Course
Although Tom was raised in the West Texas tradition of faith, liberty, and self-governance, he says, “My parents were apolitical. Our lives revolved around our church.”
“We were just very committed to knowing what you believe, knowing why you believe it, and then living up to what you believe. My parents voted, and they voted conservative when they voted, but they just didn’t pay attention much to politics. And they certainly didn’t talk about it in the home.”
However, what they did had a great impact on Tom’s political philosophy.
“My parents taught me to read at home, and one of the first things they did is they gave me biographies of the Founding Fathers and of the Texas revolutionary heroes, Texas Founding Fathers, and American pioneers in the West.”
Tom remembers being raised on stories of “the good guys doing heroic things and Americans being heroic, liberty-oriented, good guys going against tyranny.”
“Boy, I soaked that up,” he said.
“The arc of my life in terms of politics has been to try to get back to the vision that the framers had for America and Texas.”
Passion & Politics
As a young, voracious reader in a Friday Night Lights world, Tom began reading all of the current events-focused periodicals in the Ector County Library, which eventually led to an interest in public policy.
For the last forty-plus years, Tom has been active in local and state politics at the grassroots level. In fact, he and his wife Kathie met at the Libertarian Party Conference in 1981.
“My wife and I have a common interest in liberty, and that was one of the things that brought us together,” he told Texas Scorecard.
This common interest in liberty has led both to run for office and found multiple grassroots organizations. However, as Tom says, “To quote Clint Eastwood, a man’s got to know his limitations.”
“Priorities are very important,” and that’s why he has two rules for his activism.
If we achieve this objective here, will this make a tremendous difference in the lives of the people of Texas or America? And if I don’t do it, will somebody else do it?
“So, what I’m looking for is something that is super important and will be strategic if we get it accomplished—and something that if I don’t do it, it’s not going to get done. And that kind of guides where I go.”
Perspective
“Everything we hold dear as Texans—from our ag industry, to our oil and gas industry, to our guns, to our election integrity, to our medical freedom, to our financial freedom—is under assault from globalists and Marxists who have seized control in D.C. That is the clear and present danger we face. It is an all-out assault to try to kill the American dream, kill the American idea, destroy the Constitution, and destroy your, and my, and others’ Texas lives.”
Therefore, since the federal government continues down a path of corruption and tyranny, Tom is looking for ways to restore power to the hands of the state and its citizens.
His Constitutional Enforcement Group believes it is the responsibility of the local officials—who have sworn to protect and defend the Constitution—to call out constitutional violations. “And then you need to stop it,” said Tom. “Stop the violation. That’s what I call ‘constitutional enforcement.’”
“We got passed in my Lee County Republican Party a ‘Texans Resistance to the Great Reset Resolution,’ and I’m going to be the chair of the Business Commerce and Transportation Committee and the Platform Committee. And I’m hoping to get that into the committee. And I hope to accelerate that in the next legislative session.”
When Tom isn’t busy planning for the future of the Republic, he can most likely be found on his ranch riding four-wheelers with his granddaughter.