Jacob Vaughn
Audio By Carbonatix
A mayoral candidate in Frisco who has made inflammatory remarks about Muslims and referred to immigrants as “rats” is one of the last two men standing in the race.
Out of a field of four candidates, Rod Vilhauer and Mark Hill advanced to a runoff on May 2 after neither received a majority of votes. The candidates beat out two incumbent Frisco City Council members to make the final ballot and will face off in a June 13 runoff election.
Hill is backed by current Frisco Mayor Jeff Cheney and currently serves on the school board of Frisco ISD outside of his legal practice. Vilhauer, on the other hand, is a 65-year-old former owner of a construction company who served on the city’s zoning board in the 1990s. He received 28.7% of the vote, trailing Hill’s roughly 37%, according to Collin County election data.
On his campaign website, Vilhauer’s listed priorities include governmental transparency, addressing congestion in the rapidly growing suburb, public safety and improving basic city services. What you won’t find, however, are some of the staunchly conservative candidate’s more controversial and well-publicized comments on Muslims and Indians.
‘It’s a terrorist group’
In a March appearance on a right-wing podcast, Vilhauer fanned fears of sharia law — which is largely unenforceable in the U.S. — coming to Texas and dismissed took shots at the Islamic faith.
“You can’t tell me that Islam is a religion,” Vilhauer said. “It’s a terrorist group… If you don’t bow to them, you die — that’s a religion? I don’t think so.”
The candidate’s comments come at a time when Frisco has become a majority-minority city with a large Muslim community, and GOP lawmakers are playing into Islamophobic rhetoric with increasing enthusiasm. Warning of the “Islamification” of Texas, prominent state Republicans like Gov. Greg Abbott have aired largely unsubstantiated concerns about so-called “sharia courts,” while Attorney General Ken Paxton has relentlessly targeted both the East Plano Islamic Center and its planned Muslim-centric 402-acre real estate development.
Attorney general candidate Chip Roy and Republican U.S. Rep. Keith Self, who represents a large part of Frisco’s growingly diverse eastern half, recently formed the “Sharia Free America Caucus” in the House of Representatives. As of late March, over 50 GOP representatives have joined the caucus, which Self has said is necessary to “save Western Civilization and fight back against the threat of Sharia.”
In the podcast, Vilhauer doubled down on the supposed threat of sharia, which he said “does not recognize the supremacy of the U.S. Constitution or Texas law.”
“With the Muslim people, they don’t want to assimilate. They’re not going to… go home. That’s my deal,” he said. “Get out! If you’re not going to live by the Constitution of the United States, the laws of this land, respect our government, love this country, love our state, get out. That’s simple. Hey, I’ll bust you. Let’s go.”
His comments were backed by the lead pastor at Elevate Life Church, Keith Craft, at a church service following the May 2 election. Vilhauer, a member of Craft’s congregation, was praised as the only feasible candidate to counter the “demonic agendas” of Islam, which he described as an “ideology from hell,” according to prior reporting by the Morning News.
“I want us to show up like an army at the polls,” Craft told his congregation at the service, where he reportedly placed his hands over Vilhauer’s head while asking God to give the candidate “wisdom, knowledge and divine favor.”
Vilhauer’s campaign denied the Observer’s requests for an interview and instead sent a statement in response to questions about his remarks.
“People come to this country for opportunity and a better future; they left where they were for a reason,” the statement reads. “The deal is simple: live by the Constitution of the United States and the laws of this land, adjust to our way of life, and uphold the values that made this country worth coming to in the first place. That is not controversial; that is the deal. Frisco needs a mayor who is willing to stand up for our values, our laws, and our way of life, not one who looks the other way.”
(Editor’s Note: The U.S. Constitution guarantees the freedom of religion and does not require residents to “uphold” an arbitrary set of vaguely-defined “values.”)
His campaign has continued to market itself as the opposition to the supposed Islamification of Frisco. Campaign texts have told residents that “Sharia Law has no place in Frisco” and included images of women wearing hijab, while Vilhauer pledged to stop the spread of sharia in mailers.
Vilhauer also backed out of a planned candidate forum at the Islamic Center of Frisco after confirming his attendance, instead choosing to appear at a competing forum at Elevate Life Church. Hill attended the event, according to Morning News reports.
‘Thought they were all Muslims’
Frisco has also gained national attention amidst a wave of fear over an “Indian takeover” and unsubstantiated claims of mass H-1B visa fraud. Council meetings have been filled with public comments expressing xenophobic and racist sentiments toward Collin County’s rapidly growing South Asian population in recent months, with some meetings drawing attention from national outlets in February.
While Vilhauer has appeared at Indian cultural festivals and said that he would “reach across the aisle” and “build a relationship” with the community, the candidate momentarily equated immigrants moving to the U.S. with “rats” on the March podcast before quickly retracting the statement. He also continued to emphasize his belief that Indians should assimilate into U.S. cultural norms.
“Assimilate or get out,” Vilhauer said on the podcast. “I mean, there’s no patience, no anything. You know, their cars have that ‘Please be patient student driver sticker.’ I told them all I’ve got this sticker; it says ‘hammer down.’ I’m going to give it to you.”
In the same podcast, Vilhauer called on the federal government to investigate H-1B visa fraud and admitted that until about a year ago, he didn’t know the difference between Muslims and Indians, adding that “I thought they were all muslims.”
Hill, who has not commented on Vilhauer’s, is running under the slogan of “Unite Frisco.” Vilhauer’s slogan is “Pay it Forward,” and according to a March 17 social media post, he may have a different definition of unity.
“There’s a big difference between union and unity,” he said. “You can force a union, but true unity means becoming one, undivided, in agreement and harmony. In Frisco, that means all of us pulling the rope in the same direction, respecting people for who they are and the cultures they come from, a common ground we can build from is shared values such as strong families, safety and our conservative beliefs.”
