Practicing law on both sides of the docket, Barbara Ann Radnofsky is a mother, wife, teacher, and mediator. Texas educated, she’s a magna cum laude graduate from the University of Houston and an honors graduate from University of Texas Law School. In 2006, after 27 years of law practice, Barbara Ann left Vinson & Elkins as Head of the Alternate Dispute Resolution Section to become the first woman in history to serve as the Texas Democratic U.S. Senate nominee. She was the first woman at Vinson & Elkins to have children as an associate and attain partnership.
Barbara Ann was honored as the Outstanding Young Lawyer of Texas in 1988. She has been listed for the past 17 years in “Best Lawyers in America” and is currently listed in four areas: dispute resolution, medical malpractice, personal injury, and health care law. In 1999, Barbara Ann successfully petitioned the Consumer Product Safety Commission to prohibit defective barbecue lighters with estimated annual savings of millions of dollars and hundreds of lives.
A community leader, Barbara Ann served on the boards of the Anti-Defamation league and the Houston Urban Debate League. Barbara Ann long served as a volunteer peer mediation teacher in Houston’s schools. She is a graduate of the FBI Citizen’s Academy and Board Member of the FBI Citizen’s Academy Alumni Association (Houston).
She and her husband are active in supporting the Dead Sea Scrolls Foundation, enabling museum displays of the scrolls and commissioning publication of a scrolls volume. They are co-owners of the Brazos Bookstore, an independent bookstore and Houston tradition.
She is the 2010 Democratic nominee for Texas Attorney General. Texas has never had a woman Attorney General. Barbara Ann will fight for Texas; Greg Abbott won’t.
Abbott Fights for Special Interests. Radnofsky Fights for Texans.
As Texas Attorney General, Greg Abbott has refused to fight for everyday Texans and has chosen instead to fight for wealthy special interests and insurance companies.
A full partner to Rick Perry’s failed partisan agenda, Abbott’s refusal to stand up for us makes it clear Texans can’t count on him to act as the People’s Lawyer – as our primary line of defense against wrongdoers. Under Greg Abbott, the office of the Texas Attorney General is not only ineffective; it is actually hostile to Texans’ best interests.
In the wake of the recent British Petroleum (BP) Gulf oil spill, Abbott didn’t even attempt to act like the state’s chief law enforcement officer. Despite BP’s horrific safety record, Abbott made excuses for the oil company rather than insisting that its plans and actions be scrutinized. Instead, Abbott said on May 3rd: “we’re seeing BP take all the right actions and make all the right comments.” (Source: KXAN-TV).
That same day, Rick Perry said it was too early to blame BP because “from time to time there are going to be things that occur that are acts of God that cannot be prevented.” (Source: Dallas Morning News”). Through their reckless comments, it’s clear Abbott and Perry’s loyalties lie with special interests like BP, rather than with everyday people, our livelihoods and our environment.
Texans deserve an Attorney General who will protect us as citizens and consumers, not someone who has taken over $2,000,000 in oil and gas contributions. (Source: Radnofsky press release, “2,000,000 Reasons Abbott Defends BP: Day 14”). Barbara Ann Radnofsky, the Democratic nominee for Attorney General, is committed to fighting for Texans and holding even the most powerful special interests responsible for their actions.
Barbara Ann Radnofsky took on Abbott’s inexcusable defense of BP, calling out his failure to fight for Texans in a series of press releases. Radnofsky explained that BP had not followed its own safety regulations and was not prepared to address a worst-case scenario. “It’s bad lawyering for Texas’ chief legal officer to claim that BP made ‘all the right actions and all the right comments,’” she said. “Texans can expect that incorrect statement to appear in the defense of BP in future litigation.” (Source: Radnofsky press release, “AG Abbott’s Quick BP Defense Will Backfire”).
Rather than make excuses for a catastrophe-prone, foreign oil company, Barbara Ann made it clear she will stand for nothing less than the truth. In the aftermath of a titanic manmade environmental disaster, Abbot’s defense of BP made it clear he aims to protect interests like BP – not people and our environment and economy.
Earlier this year, Abbott took his partisan agenda to a national stage, filing a frivolous partisan lawsuit to deny Texans the benefits in the health care bill. Abbott was willing to waste our tax dollars on a cynical move that would only benefit big insurance companies – not Texas families.
One in four Texans (including one in four of our children) are uninsured and those of us who do have insurance pay some of the nation’s highest rates. Even worse, if Greg Abbott had his way and the healthcare act were repealed, insurance companies could go back to denying coverage and bankrupting families forced to deal on their own with catastrophic illnesses and preexisting conditions. It’s clear we need an Attorney General who will fight for our interests as consumers.
If Abbott really wanted to protect Texans, he would put an end to his grandstanding over the healthcare bill and start doing the job we pay him to do. Radnofsky has pointed out that not only does Abbott have no standing to assert individual liberties (to file suit against health care), but he could do more to protect Texans from extreme insurance rate increases.(Source: Radnofsky press releases, “Texas Attorney General Mounts Legal Loser Challenge; “Protect Texas Insurance Consumers”).
Texans are being denied the protection we should be able to count on from our Attorney General because Abbott treats us like political pawns in a partisan game. After eight years in office, Abbott has failed to protect Texas families from the special interests that are profiting at our expense. Barbara Ann Radnofsky summed it up well when she explained that Texas Republicans are “not fighting for us – they’re fighting for themselves.”
Greg Abbott is a politician who overlooks our interests any time it suits his personal ambition. On November 2nd, Texans can show him the door, and vote for a proven advocate for the people, Barbara Ann Radnofsky.
Incumbent Texas AG: Politics Before Duty
By: Barbara Ann Radnofsky
Our statewide leaders aren’t fighting for us; they are fighting for themselves. Texas’ highest law enforcement official is the Attorney General, the People’s Lawyer. What happens when the People’s Lawyer gives bad legal advice and abuses the office for political gain? The office of the Attorney General harms our everyday lives, our safety and the safety of our children.
The Texas Attorney General picks his battles. It was a Texas Attorney General opinion which enabled Tom DeLay’s mid decade redistricting (http://www.barbaraann2010.com/issues/redistricting). To the great credit of the Texas Rangers in 2006, an election year, it was a Ranger who brought concrete evidence of sexual and physical abuse at the Texas Youth Commission to the Texas Attorney General. The Attorney General turned his back. Instead, he used Attorney General resources to target elderly and minority Democrats assisting the homebound to cast their mail in ballots. Attorney General Abbott squandered seven figures of discretionary funds, finding no organized widespread fraud or voter impersonation. Reports of investigators spying on an elderly woman in her bathroom and knocking on her door amid selective prosecutions of Democratic activists convey a political purpose: voter intimidation. Media reported a County Democratic Party no longer sending out campaign volunteers to homes for voter registration. While litigation settlement curbed certain abusive practices by the Attorney General, Texans remain burdened by an Attorney General prone to attack non-existent problems. He’s supported stricter voter identification, including the Indiana photo identification law. That’s harder for poor, elderly and minority voting prospects. Attorney General Abbott was too quick to absolve BP post-April 20 oil spill as having made “all the right actions and all the right comments” as of May 3 (http://www.barbaraann2010.com/node/645) (http://www.barbaraann2010.com/node/647). Mr. Abbott’s two million dollars in oil and gas campaign donations blinded him to his duty: serve Texas, not British Petroleum (http://www.barbaraann2010.com/node/648) (http://www.barbaraann2010.com/node/651).
As a wife, mother, teacher and 30 year lawyer, I will fight for the people of Texas. Greg Abbott will not. I won’t turn my back on fraud or crime. I won’t use the Opinion process to halt legitimate investigation of suspect state agencies. Mr. Abbott halted the Comptroller’s investigation of the builder-oriented Texas Residential Construction Commission. The Attorney General opinion was sought within days of a $100,000 donation to the AG by homebuilder Bob Perry and wife, part of their donations exceeding a million dollars (http://www.barbaraann2010.com/node/622) .
As the first woman Texas Attorney General, I will fight fraud and crime whether committed with a computer or a tire iron. I’ll continue to highlight the issues (http://www.barbaraann2010.com/issues) important to Texans and the incumbent Attorney General’s politically motivated actions harming Texas.
Practicing law on both sides of the docket, Barbara Ann Radnofsky is a mother, wife, teacher, and mediator. Texas educated, she’s a magna cum laude graduate from the University of Houston and an honors graduate from University of Texas Law School. In 2006, after 27 years of law practice, Barbara Ann left Vinson & Elkins as Head of the Alternate Dispute Resolution Section to become the first woman in history to serve as the Texas Democratic U.S. Senate nominee. She was the first woman at Vinson & Elkins to have children as an associate and attain partnership.