A member of the Republican Party , he served from to as the 50th attorney general of Texas and from to as a justice of the Texas Supreme Court. Abbott is the longest-serving incumbent governor in the United States. Abbott was the third Republican to serve as attorney general of Texas since the Reconstruction era.
Before becoming attorney general, Abbott was a justice of the Texas Supreme Court , a position to which he was appointed in by then-governor George W. As attorney general, he successfully advocated for the Texas State Capitol to display the Ten Commandments in the U. Supreme Court case Van Orden v. Perry , and unsuccessfully defended the state's ban on same-sex marriage. He was involved in numerous lawsuits against the Barack Obama administration , seeking to invalidate the Affordable Care Act and the administration's environmental regulations.
Elected in , Abbott is the first Texas governor and third governor of a U. Roosevelt and George Wallace. As governor, Abbott supported the first Donald Trump administration and has promoted a conservative agenda, including measures against abortion such as the Texas Heartbeat Act , lenient gun laws, opposition to illegal immigration , support for law enforcement funding, and election reform.
In response to the power crisis following a February winter storm , Abbott called for reforms to Electric Reliability Council of Texas ERCOT and signed a bill requiring power plant weatherization. During the COVID pandemic in Texas , Abbott opposed implementing face mask and vaccine mandates , while blocking local governments, businesses, and other organizations from implementing their own.
He has also made a priority of fighting illegal immigration , starting Operation Lone Star in In his sophomore year in high school, his father died of a heart attack ; his mother went to work in a real estate office. Abbott's judicial career began in Houston , where he served as a state trial judge in the th District Court for three years.
