“Tolerance for criminality”: Why top Republicans are turning on Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller

S – It was a few weeks before the 2016 election, and Sid Miller’s political star was on the rise.

At a rally in Michigan, then-first-time presidential candidate Donald Trump interrupted his stump speech to give Texas’s top agriculture official a shout-out.

“Great guy. Big white cowboy hat,” Trump said, noting Miller’s signature accessory and praising him as one of his most vocal and loyal allies in the Lone Star State.

After winning the White House the first time, Trump endorsed Miller twice for his reelections in 2018 and 2022 — in primaries where Miller cruised to victory. Trump called the Stephenville Republican his “man in Texas,” and when he won his second presidential term in 2024, there were reports that Miller was being considered for Agriculture Secretary in the presidential cabinet.

Now, as Miller seeks a fourth term as agriculture commissioner, a statewide position overseeing Texas’s second largest industry, he’s never been more vulnerable.

The three-term incumbent is effectively the underdog in the primary race for his own seat. His Republican opponent, Nate Sheets — a former Miller donor turned critic — has raised three times Miller’s haul since the start of 2025. Trump — his most powerful ally — has been noticeably silent in the most difficult election of Miller’s career. And other sitting Republican officeholders are publicly attacking him, on accusations of being corrupt and ineffective.

Perhaps most perilous to his reelection — Gov. Greg Abbott, the de facto Republican leader of the state and an influential campaign powerhouse — has been shouting from the rooftops that Miller is undeserving of another term.

“He’s been an utter failure in his job as Ag Commissioner,” Abbott said on a conservative radio show last month. “There are character flaws with him that do not reflect positively on the state of Texas.”

Scandal is nothing new to Miller. In his first term in office, he was investigated by the Texas Rangers and fined by the Texas Ethics Commission after allegations surfaced that he was using public dollars for personal travel, including one trip to receive a pain injection called the “Jesus shot.” He paid back the money, and he was never charged with a crime.

In his second term, his longtime political consultant, Todd Smith, was indicted for commercial bribery and theft for trying to sell hemp licenses regulated by Miller’s agency. Miller was never implicated, and he went on to easily win a third term in office.

But this time, his GOP colleagues appear to have lost their patience with Miller. After Smith pleaded guilty, Miller installed him as chief of staff at the Department of Agriculture, the second-highest-paid employee in the 755-person agency. Last year, The Texas Tribune reported a former friend told law enforcement that Miller asked him to dispose of marijuana cigarettes and gummies after hearing that federal drug enforcement agents were investigating him. And law enforcement interviews also revealed multiple complaints from agriculture department staff about Miller’s continued closeness to Smith. Miller has defended Smith’s hiring and called the criminal case against him “Democrat lawfare.”

“Texans deserve an Agriculture Commissioner who is focused on promoting Texas Agriculture, with zero tolerance for criminality,” Abbott said in his Sheets endorsement last month.

Of course, Miller, who has the power of incumbency and relationships with farmers across the state, will still be a formidable candidate this March.

“He’s got good relations with the U.S. [Department of Agriculture] and the sitting president, which always makes things easier,” said Ted Conover, a rancher in Tyler who has donated to his campaign.

In an interview, Miller said he remains the strongest candidate for the job and claimed his opponent has “never milked a cow, sheared a sheep, or shot a horse.”

He was dismissive of Abbott’s crusade against him, noting that the governor just doesn’t like him. He brushed off Trump’s lack of endorsement, suggesting that Trump was privately supporting him.

“How do you know he hasn’t endorsed?” Miller said. “Maybe I’m not ready to release it.”

The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

Meanwhile, he is publicly touting his successes in office, including the launch of the AgriStress Hotline, which provides mental health support to farmers and those in rural areas, the creation of the Farm Fresh Initiative, which connects farmers with their local schools to provide healthy produce, and expanding the agency’s marketing program that champions Texas-made products.

But beyond the political spectre, Miller has lost the support of many farmers and ranchers — some of whom say he hasn’t done enough on the ground to support them during events like the 2024 Panhandle fires, and are angry he raised license and registration fees across agriculture industries. The Texas Farm Bureau — which represents more than 500,000 member-families — and the Texas & Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association, with more than 28,000 members, lined up behind Sheets.

“We don’t necessarily need a guy who’s really good on a horse, who is really good at doctoring cows,” said Lee Wells, a rancher and small business owner in Greenville who is supporting Sheets. “We need more of a CEO than a cowboy.”

Legislature v. Miller

Among the Republicans who bucked Miller to support his opponent are current and former members of the Texas Legislature, including state Sens. Charles Perry of Lubbock, Kevin Sparks of Midland, Texas Rep. Jeff Leach of Plano, and, most recently, Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham — a former state senator, who offered a scathing rebuke of the rodeo cowboy.

In endorsing Sheets, Buckingham said she learned “how deep the animus between the Legislature and the current commissioner, Sid Miller, truly was” in 2021 when she carried Sunset legislation as a state senator that would renew the agency and review its performance.

“The entire Agency and its critical mission to support Texas farmers and ranchers was in jeopardy due to the misconduct and misbehavior of Miller,” Buckingham said in a statement. “I stood up for the Agency and prevented its complete dismantling because I did not want the entire Agriculture community to suffer due to the failures of Sid Miller.”

Miller said he was surprised by Buckingham’s comments. 

“That’s a light I’ve never seen turned on before,” Miller said, adding that the two share an office building and have dove hunted together. 

Buckingham is just the latest in a long trail of lawmakers who have clashed with Miller since he took office back in 2014. During his first legislative session, he was relentlessly grilled by officials for raising fees on dozens of licenses and registrations for services the agency provides, arguing the increases were needed to replace agency funding after the Legislature slashed the budget in 2011. Notably, he omitted fee increases for the nursery and floral industry. Miller owns a tree nursery.

“The proposed fee increases will raise certain fees dramatically; in one case, a fee will be raised more than six times the current rate. The stakeholder community has indicated that these fee increases could potentially have a dire impact on individual industries, the agricultural economy at large, and consumers,” a bipartisan group of 72 House members wrote in an open letter to Miller, urging him to back off the fee increases. 

A state audit later found the raised fees generated millions more than necessary to operate the agency.

As the years passed, lawmakers continued to signal their lack of trust in Miller by taking aim at his budget and responsibilities.

In 2019, lawmakers passed a bill that took away the agency’s responsibility to regulate fuel pumps at gas stations across the state, handing the responsibility over to the Department of Licensing and Regulation.

When Sen. Carol Alvarado, D-Houston, explained the bill at the time, she said it would be more efficient to transfer the regulation of fuel pumps, meters, and fuel quality “from a political entity to a true regulatory entity.” The move came after Miller affixed new stickers to fuel pumps across the state with his name in large font on them and a message to consumers shielding himself from blame over fuel costs: “All motor fuel taxes are set by the U.S. Congress and Texas State Legislature, NOT by the Texas Department of Agriculture or Texas Agriculture Commissioner.”

In 2021, the Legislature went after Miller’s travel.

Days before the end of the legislative session, budget writers snuck a stipulation into the final version of the budget bill that Miller could not use more than $2,500 per year in state funds to cover his travel expenses, a burdensome limit for an official who routinely travels to different corners of the state to meet with farmers. Miller was the only state agency head who received the limitation, which remained in every subsequent state budget. Last year, lawmakers relaxed the cap.

The legislative action around his travel in 2021 came a few weeks after Smith, Miller’s political consultant, was arrested for trying to sell hemp licenses. 

Bonnie Cudlip, Miller’s former executive assistant who has since become a vocal Miller critic on social media, said in an interview with the Tribune that at the time she asked lawmakers about the reason for the travel expense restriction, and was told by some members that they felt Miller was “abusing the agency for political purposes.”

Miller called that a “bold-faced lie” from a “disgruntled former employee” and said he doesn’t know why the Legislature restricted his travel. 

Nate Sheets

Nate Sheets, founder of a national honey company and ranch owner, was once a Miller supporter — spending a total of $35,000 over the course of his campaigns to support him.

Sheets served for six years in the U.S. Naval Reserve before graduating from Texas State University. He also previously worked as communications director for an evangelist ministry that establishes new Christian congregations around the world.

He decided to run for the office, he said, because he was frustrated that Miller was focusing on culture war issues that do not support farmers and ranchers.

“He’s just trying to have clickbait out there so people can be on his Facebook page because he’s not able to raise any money to be able to communicate with people,” Sheets said. “He chooses to get involved in things that don’t even have to do with what his job is, and as a result, farmers and ranchers are neglected, and we’ve lost 18,000 farmers and ranchers in Texas since 2018.”

Meanwhile, Miller has cast Sheets as a risky choice.

“He’s never held office. We don’t know if he’s going to be conservative or liberal,” Miller told conservative radio host Chad Hasty last month. “He’s a total unknown, zero agricultural experience other than bottling honey.”

Sheets has raised more than $840,000 since July, compared to Miller’s $295,000 during that same time period. It’s the least amount of money Miller’s raised at this point in any of his agriculture commissioner primaries.

Miller still has some support from elected officials. But they remain largely silent about their support beyond their endorsements.

U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul’s campaign spokesperson confirmed he endorsed Miller, but the Austin Republican’s office declined to comment further on the endorsement. Rep. Don McLaughlin, R-Uvalde, didn’t respond to a request for comment.

In an interview, Rep. Gary Gates, R-Richmond, confirmed his endorsement of Miller, saying, “if my name’s there, then I think he’s doing a good job.”

But Gates added that he also thought Sheets would do a good job and wished Abbott had endorsed Sheets earlier.

“I value the governor’s choice quite a bit,” Gates said. “But I’m not going to change my endorsement of Sid.”

“Jump in a lake”

Lee Wells said he got so angry at Miller two years ago that he also considered running against him.

The North Texas rancher reached out to Miller’s office amid the devastating wildfires that burned more than 1,500 square miles of rangeland in the Panhandle northeast of Amarillo.

Wells was involved in recovery efforts and felt Miller wasn’t adequately stepping up to help the farmers and ranchers that his agency supports. He described a conversation they had when Wells questioned Miller about where resources were being directed, calling Miller defensive.

“He won’t answer the questions directly,” said Wells, who ultimately decided not to run for office.

He wasn’t the only one disappointed by Miller’s fire response.

After Miller posted on Facebook about the STAR Fund — relief aid raised for farmers and ranchers affected by a major disaster — a pastor from the Panhandle asked him where that money was going and why he hadn’t visited the region since the disaster occurred. It prompted a tense back-and-forth where Miller apparently told the pastor to “jump in a lake,” according to screenshots of the partially deleted exchange obtained by the Tribune and reported by Chron.com at the time.

“Why can’t you appreciate the help you are being sent from the TDA,” wrote Miller from his personal Facebook account. “I don’t think I’ve ever been talked to by someone so ungrateful.”

Miller said in an interview that his policy is to wait until a disaster has died down before visiting.

“The worst thing that can happen is for an elected official, the governor or the ag commissioner, to show up when everybody’s in total chaos,” he said, adding that everyone “caters to the dignitary” rather than the disaster. He defended his agency’s response, saying that he “revitalized” the Hay Hotline — which connects sellers and buyers who need hay during droughts and disasters —  and raised more than $1.5 million for victims as part of the department’s STAR fund. 

Now, ranchers are bracing for another potential agriculture disaster: the New World Screwworm, a parasitic fly threatening the state’s multi-billion-dollar cattle industry.

Miller has been vocal about the threat to the state’s cattle industry, promoting a lure trap that he says was developed by his department. But he has been effectively sidelined from official response on the state and federal level, as Abbott directed other agencies to take the lead on the response. Miller denies the agency has been sidelined, claiming the agriculture department has been the “tip of the spear to protect the state.” 

Last fall, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, led by fellow Texan Brooke Rollins, issued a statement criticizing Miller’s handling of the screwworm threat, saying Miller was “blatantly disregarding tried and true [New World Screwworm] offensive strategies in favor of clickbait publicity stunts.”

Wells said that friction between the federal government and Miller is another reason why he’s supporting Sheets.

“[Federal officials] need to value our opinion here,” Wells said. “And we don’t have a man that they value.”

Disclosure: Facebook, Texas Farm Bureau and Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete list of them here.