Is It 2001 Again? (And I Don’t Mean The Movie)

Texas Railroad Commissioner candidate Bo French goes off on a racist rant at CPAC:

"It's not just the Muslims... we have roughly 100 million people in this country who shouldn't be here. We're going to send all these people home. We're going to stop the Islamification of Texas… pic.twitter.com/z0JKBuv6xl

— Blue Georgia (@BlueGeorgia) March 27, 2026

At least per the ads, Sharia law and being “agin” it, were hot topics in the GOP primary.

“Since 1965, we’ve allowed immigration from lots of places in the world whose culture and values do not align with America,” French said.

He’s in a runoff for the party nomination, if that tells you anything.

“I’m going to say something that’s going to make some people uncomfortable: The problem is, we call it Sharia [law], but the problem is actually Islam,” French said. “If they can infiltrate Texas and conquer Texas, then what’s going to happen? They’re going to be able to control the United States.”

The Texas Railroad Commission regulates oil and gas production in Texas (OPEC was modeled on it). Unless Sharia law is going to affect oil production in the Permian Basin, I got no idea why French cares. He is from Midland (Permian Basin area), and there ain’t many Muslims out there. Plenty in Houston, and none of them are forcing the rest of us to follow Sharia law.

Texas is home to more than 300,000 Muslims — more than all but four states — and long-established Muslim communities in Houston and North Texas. As of 2017, Muslims made up less than 2% of the state population.

In fact, some Muslims sued the State to allow Muslim schools access to the new voucher program. But that was Constitutional law, not Islamic (1st and 14th amendments).

I still don’t think this insanity plays well outside the Texas GOP sandbox, but we’ll see.