San Antonio-area funeral home operator Kristin Tips is no longer serving on the Texas Funeral Service Commission — following months of concerns about the appropriateness of regulating her own industry.
Tips and her husband, Dick Tips, own Mission Park Funeral Chapels, Cemeteries and Crematories.
They’re major donors to Gov. Greg Abbott, and Kristin Tips was considered a potential Republican candidate for several state legislative and congressional openings earlier this year.
At one point an outside group was running ads accusing her of losing a body at one of her funeral homes — attacks that appeared aimed at softening her up ahead of a potential primary challenge to state Rep. Marc LaHood (R-San Antonio).
The ads said Tips had “no business” chairing the Texas Funeral Service Commission, which is responsible for overseeing funeral homes. She ultimately passed on the race against LaHood, supporting her friend David McArthur instead.
The nature of Tips’ exit from the Texas Funeral Service Commission is unclear.
She submitted her resignation, according to the Houston Chronicle, and the governor’s office said said only that Abbott “appreciates Kristin Tips’ service.”
Without Tips, San Antonians hold relatively few positions on statewide boards and commissions — roles that are typically doled out to the governor’s top political backers.
The most notable appointment in recent years was Bruce Bugg Jr., who chaired the Texas Transportation Commission, but died in August.
