Eminent Domain Is Theft — And East Texas Has Paid the Price for Decades

The first duty of government under both the United States Constitution and the Texas Constitution is to protect private property.

Property rights are not a policy preference. They are a constitutional command.

If you do not truly own your land, you are not free.

That is why the proposed Marvin Nichols Reservoir is not merely a disagreement over infrastructure. It is a direct assault on private property, family land, and rural communities across East Texas.

Let me be absolutely clear: eminent domain is legalized theft, no matter how politely it is packaged.

What the Marvin Nichols Reservoir Really Means

The Marvin Nichols Reservoir would:

• Seize tens of thousands of acres of private land,

• Destroy family farms, ranches, and generational homesteads,

• Displace rural communities that have stewarded this land for decades,

• Transfer property from the People to the State under threat of force.

Calling this “progress” does not change the reality. When government takes land from unwilling owners for speculative future use, that is not public service — it is coercion.

Decades of Silence and Inaction

What makes this worse is that this threat is not new.

East Texans have been warning about Marvin Nichols for decades. Landowners have shown up. Families have testified. Communities have pleaded for relief.

And yet, the project was never permanently killed.

For years, nothing meaningful was done to protect East Texas landowners. The threat lingered while state agencies quietly kept Marvin Nichols alive on paper, session after session.

Delay is not neutrality. Delay is consent.

The Record — Not the Rhetoric

After decades of warnings from East Texans, the only legislative action my opponent ever took on Marvin Nichols was HB 2109 during the most recent session.

He did not author it. He did not lead it. He signed on late, as a co-author, after years of silence.

HB 2109 was a narrow, procedural bill that would have removed certain long-stalled reservoir projects from the State Water Plan after fifty years of inaction. It did not constitutionally prohibit eminent domain. It did not permanently protect East Texas landowners. And it did not kill Marvin Nichols outright.

And then it failed.

HB 2109 died in committee without ever becoming law.

That is the full extent of the “action” taken — a last-session, co-authored bill that went nowhere, after decades of local landowners begging for real protection.

That is not leadership. That is not urgency. That is not defense of property rights.

And it is not surprising.

More than 83% of my opponent’s campaign funding comes from outside House District 5 — from donors who will never lose their land, never attend a Marvin Nichols hearing, and never face the threat of eminent domain here at home.

Out-of-district money produces out-of-district priorities.

I did not spend 26 years defending liberty and the Constitution to come home and accept symbolic gestures that fail when it matters most.

East Texas deserves more than lip service and late signatures. We deserve real, binding protection for private property — and I will deliver it.

My Position: No Compromise on Property Rights

I unequivocally condemn the Marvin Nichols Reservoir.

Not half-heartedly.

Not conditionally.

Completely.

I believe:

• Eminent domain should never be used to confiscate family land for speculative projects,

• Rural Texans should not be sacrificed for urban planning failures elsewhere,

• The State exists to secure property rights — not override them.

As a retired Army Lieutenant Colonel, I understand the difference between legitimate public necessity and government overreach. As a Texan, I understand that land is not just an asset — it is heritage, livelihood, and liberty.

If elected, I will use every lawful tool available to:

• Block funding, authorization, and permitting of the Marvin Nichols Reservoir,

• Advance statutory and constitutional protections that actually bind the State,

• Force transparency and accountability on agencies that treat eminent domain as a shortcut.

I Didn’t Fight for Liberty Abroad to Lose It at Home

I did not sacrifice 26 years of my life in uniform — including combat service — defending liberty, the Constitution, and the rights of the American People, only to come home and watch Texas government take those same rights by force.

I did not swear an oath to support and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic, just to stay silent while the State claims the power to seize family land from Texans who have done nothing wrong.

Liberty is not situational.

Property rights do not end at the county line.

And government does not become righteous simply because it acts slowly or bureaucratically.

If it is wrong for a foreign government to confiscate land without consent, it is wrong for Texas to do it too.

I believe this without reservation:

A government that steals from its own people has forgotten who it serves.

That is why I oppose the Marvin Nichols Reservoir without hesitation and without compromise.

This Is a Line in the Sand

East Texas should not live forever under the threat that the State may one day decide your land is no longer yours.

This campaign draws a clear line:

• Your home is not negotiable.

• Your land is not expendable.

• Your rights are not temporary.

Eminent domain is theft — and I will stand with the people who refuse to surrender what is rightfully theirs.

If you own land, care about property rights,

or believe the State should fear the People — not the other way around — stand with us.

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