Valenzuela campaigns against oil industry, but once benefited from it's proceeds

A recent Newsweek opinion piece has shed light on the apparent oil slick of a congressional campaign Democrat Candace Valenzuela is running in Texas.

The Newsweek story focuses on Valenzuela’s the fact that while she had benefited from her husband’s past job in the oil and gas industry, the first time the congressional candidate was campaigning against domestic “oil and gas permitting” and the American fossil fuel industry as a whole.

Valenzuela supports the Green New Deal, the controversial energy alternative that Progressives like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D) have championed, and that Republicans have called a $100 trillion “job-killing” energy initiative.

While she hasn’t openly said that she would like to be asked to join the Progressive “The Squad” in the House like fellow Progressive and congressional candidate Mike Siegel has done, Valenzuela’s Progressive bona fides checks off all the boxes, making her a perfect fit to join Rep. Ocasio-Cortez’s exclusive club if she defeats Rep. Beth Van Duyne on November 3.

Texas Politics couldn’t reach Van Duyne for comment, but her campaign manager Donald Rickard issued this statement:

“Finally, a journalist who actually looks beyond the identity politics talking points and exposes Candace for being a woke fraud,” said Rickard Her extremist policies to decimate Texas energy production will eliminate two million middle-class jobs for Texans and drive energy costs for working families through the roof. But why should Candace care since she has already made money off the oil and gas industry. Now, she wants to pull the ladder up behind her and leave working families unemployed.”

Valenzuela has received the endorsements of other Green New Deal supporters Sen. Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, ‘Beto’ O’Rourke, Julian Castro, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, and Rep. Veronica Escobar.