She is one of three members of the Railroad Commission of Texas, the elected regulatory body over oil, natural gas, utilities, and surface mining first established in 1891.

Craddick receives royalties of more than $2 million per year for brokering extraction lease sales, which are potential conflicts of interest as she sits regulates the state's oil industry.

[4] Craddick's path to victory surged in the Republican runoff election held on July 31, 2012, when she easily defeated then State Representative Warren Chisum of Pampa in Gray County in the Texas Panhandle.

In that same election, most of the attention had focused not on the Craddick-Chisum race but on conservative Ted Cruz, who defeated Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst for the Republican nomination to succeed U.S.

Craddick enjoyed the support of such wealthy donors as the entrepreneur James R. Leininger of San Antonio and the late homebuilder Bob J. Perry of Houston.

[6] Craddick thereafter defeated the Democratic nominee, Dale P. Henry (born 1930), a retired petroleum engineer from Lampasas in Central Texas.

[11] Craddick's two Republican colleagues on the railroad commission were David J. Porter of Giddings in Lee County, formerly of Midland, and the former chairman, Barry Smitherman, formerly of Houston.

[14] Mark Jones, a political scientist at Rice University, attributed Craddick's victory over Chisum to the "respect" within the GOP for her father.