Texas PACS: A Roundup of the Special Interests
Driving Texas' Political Action Committees
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Method
This report analyzes the 974 general-pur- pose PACs that registered expenditures with the Texas Ethics Commission (TEC) from 1995 through 1997. As such, this report does not cover federal political committees organized to support candidates for federal offices.
Texas PACs come in two main forms. “General-purpose” PACs are analyzed in this report; “specific-purpose” PACs are not.
General-purpose PACs
General-purpose PACs support general issues and multiple candidates for
various elected offices. The general-purpose PACs studied here spent $56
million from 1995 through 1997. Researchers classified each PAC in this
report by industry or interest group, using as a model the federal PAC
classification system developed by the Center for Responsive Politics in
Washington, D.C. The adopted system contains 12 primary interest categories
and 52 subcategories. PACs with multiple interests—including PACs affiliated
with diversified corporations—were classified according to their primary
interest. The data on general-purpose PACs in this report reflect weaknesses
in Texas election law. Out-of-state PACs are not required to file reports
with the TEC, for example, unless they made more than 20 percent of their
overall expenditures in Texas.3 On the other hand, several out-of-state
PACs that did file reports included expenditures made on candidates outside
of Texas.
Specific-purpose PACs
Specific-purpose PACs support or oppose specific candidates or ballot
measures. From 1995 through 1997, 96 specific-purpose PACs reported $54
million in expenditures (much of that money coming from the general-purpose
PACs studied here). The 75 specific-purpose PACs organized to solely support
one specific candidate (e.g. the “Friends of James Hogg PAC”) accounted
for more than 99 percent of this money. The 21 other specific-purpose PACs,
which organized to support or oppose a specific issue or slate of candidates,
spent $392,919. Although this report just analyzes and categorizes “general-purpose”
PACs, issue-oriented, specific-purpose PACs appear in the appendix.
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