As Wendy Davis Surges Panicked GOP Considers Investigating Greg Abbott’s Pay Discrimination

Thanks to her championing of equal pay, Wendy Davis is surging in the polls while her Republican opponent Greg Abbott could be facing an investigation into pay discrimination in his office.

The Republican candidate to be the next governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, has found himself in hot water after the Wendy Davis campaign pounced on him for his refusal to say whether or not he would veto the state’s equal pay bill . Texas Republicans managed to make things even worse by claiming that women earn less than men because they are, “bad negotiators.” Things got even worse for Abbott when a study found that his attorney general’s office pays women less than men. As the equal pay controversy was catching fire, a new poll was released that showed support for Wendy Davis surging.

Texas Senate Democrats turned up the heat by sending a letter to Republican Lt. Governor David Dewhurst asking him to launch a senate investigation into pay discrimination in Abbott’s office. Dewhurst said the letter sounded a lot like “gotcha politics,” but that he would consider assigning the Senate study on equal pay.

Dewhurst also made his real motives clear, “As the son of a single mother who worked multiple jobs to support our family, I believe sincerely in equal pay, but Gov. Perry got it right when he said that last session’s bill was unnecessary. It would have duplicated federal law.”

The fact that Republicans are willing to consider a Senate investigation into pay practices of their own gubernatorial nominee illustrates how desperately they want this issue to go away. Texas Republicans are thinking that they can bury the equal pay issue by launching a senate investigation. Obviously, the Republicans intention is to make sure that the investigation won’t be completed before Election Day.

Republicans are getting very panicky. One anonymous Texas political consultant described the situation on the ground, “The entire Republican Party of Texas is on high alert right now. They’re very concerned about Battleground Texas and Wendy Davis and the elections. They’re not taking anything for granted. Every issue that comes up it will seem like there’s a panic about it.”

Texas Republicans are slowly starting to realize that Wendy Davis isn’t going to go away. They are panicking as they begin to understand that the same war on women issues that have hurt the national Republican party in the last two elections may get Wendy Davis elected governor of Texas.

Wendy Davis is making the entitled Republican men of Texas politics shake in their shoes, and that is something that they never thought could happen.

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Jason Easley

Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.

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Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association

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