State Sen. Joan Huffman joins race for Texas attorney general

AUSTIN (Nexstar) -- State Sen. Joan Huffman, R - Houston, became the latest high-profile Republican to join the race for the state's chief legal officer. She has more than a decade of experience as a prosecutor in the court room and almost two decades as a legislator in the state Capitol and is vying to become the state's first woman attorney general.

“I will be elected attorney general because I am the best-qualified, most experienced candidate who understands the intricacies of every function of state government," Huffman said in a news release announcing her candidacy.

Huffman has served in the Texas Senate since 2008 and is currently the chair of the Senate Finance Committee, which is responsible for creating the state's budget. “The attorney general is the lawyer for the state and every state agency as well. As the person trusted to write the state budget, I know the ins and outs of every facet of state government," Huffman writes.

Before her work in Austin, Huffman served 13 years as the Assistant District Attorney in Harris County. She served as the lead prosecutor in more than 100 jury trials that ranged from murder to sexual assaults of children and adults, according to her Senate website.

She enters the race with Republican Aaron Reitz -- a U.S. Marine who recently lead the U.S. Department of Justice's Office of Legal Policy -- and State Sen. Mayes Middleton -- the president of an independent oil and gas company and current first-term Republican state senator.

Huffman took an early shot at her two Republican opponents in her news release. “You want an experienced attorney, not someone who’s never seen the inside of a courtroom or is simply a young politician climbing the political ladder," Huffman said.

Reitz responded to the jab with one of his own on X. "I welcome Joan Huffman to the race for Texas AG. The liberals now have their candidate. While I agree with her that our nominee should have seen the inside of a courtroom, her attack on me as a 'young' politician is totally misleading," Reitz wrote on the social media platform.