Lobby Watch: $1.7 M. Ideological Dollars Drove Patrick-Straus Rift?

The biggest funding difference between Lt. Gov. Patrick and Speaker Straus stems from Ideological/Single Issue contributors. Before ideological brawls broke out between the two legislative chambers, Ideological/Single Issue donors gave Patrick almost $2 million--or 674 percent more than they gave to Straus.

Lobby Watch breaks down a legislative breakdown by the numbers.

Lobby Watch: The Newest 'Revolving Door' Lobbyists.

With five of Speaker Joe Straus' former lieutenants stepping straight into the lobby this session, a Straus-appointed committee eviscerated a reform to slam the brakes on the revolving door. 

Members seem to regard the revolving door as a personal entitlement, as the House trains future lobbyists at public expense. Which 2015 committee chair now boasts the fattest retainers? Who lugged the biggest leftover war chest into the lobby? 

Lobby Watch exposes the new revolvers!

Lobby Watch: American Phoenix's Ties to Macias Feed Far-Right Conspiracy

The American Phoenix Foundation declines to say who's paying it to pursue compromising videos of Texas lawmakers. Two conservative lawmakers who separately hired American Phoenix founders Joseph and Hannah Basel say political consultant Luke Macias hired the Basels on their behalf.

Lobby Watch's analysis of the clients of Macias Strategies--and who bankrolls their campaigns--will further feed rumors that American Phoenix is targeting moderate Republican lieutenants of House Speaker Joe Straus--rumors that the group denies.

Dig into the conspiracy and the new Lobby Watch.

Lobby Watch: Lobby Helped Straus Crush the Tea Party

Nineteen Texas House members started this session with a tea-party suicide vote against Speaker Straus (who appointed zero rebels to head House committees). Campaign data reveal that Austin's business lobby bankrolled the Straus loyalists who crushed the rebellion.

On average, rebels raised less money than the loyalists yet overcame more electoral opposition. With much less support from the institutional lobby, the rebels got 14% of their money from the intertwined Empower Texans and Accountability First PACs. The rebels also relied much more on individual contributors. 

A new Lobby Watch analyzes a House Divided...

Lobby Watch: Vested Interests Flood $1 Million Water-Bond PAC

Natural resources and construction interests provided 91 percent of the money raised in the last month by Speaker Joe Straus' Water Texas PAC. The PAC is urging voters to approve a November 5 proposition to spend $2 billion on water-infrastructure projects. Eager for a piece of this action, the Associated General Contractors of Texas supplied 39 cents of every dollar the PAC raised.

Read the Lobby Watch report.

Lobby Watch: Big 3 Bag Millions from TEF Recipients

The three GOP officials who oversee the Texas Enterprise Fund have collected $3.6 million in campaign cash tied to recipients of $307 million in Enterprise Fund awards. The Republican Party of Texas collected another $1.7 million from Enterprise Fund contributors.

Lobby Watch explores how the taxpayer-funded Enterprise Fund protects the three most important jobs in Texas.

Lobby Watch: Payday-Funded Pols Push Tepid Loan Reforms

Predatory lenders invested almost $4 million in Texas politicians since 2009, seriously constraining what--if anything--will be done about the runaway industry's exploitation of the neediest Texans.

Loan sharks doubled their spending on Texas elections from 2008 to 2012. It's all revealed in tawdry detail in TPJ's new Lobby Watch.

Lobby Watch: Who Funded Straus' Friends & Enemies.

Twenty key House candidates raised $8.2 million for the GOP primary, with Speaker Straus and his presumptive loyalists leaning on the big business lobby, while ideological PACs such as Texans for Lawsuit Reform and Empower Texans bankrolled Straus' presumptive enemies.

Read the new Lobby Watch.

Lobby WatchEmpower Texans: Cowboys Without Cojones

In gunning for Joe Straus, Empower Texans discovered that few modern Texans have the guts to openly attack a sitting House Speaker (just four people openly gave at least $1,000 to Empower's PAC this cycle). This year Empower's non-profit corporation already has spent $333,066 targeting moderate Republican lawmakers led by Speaker Straus. Empower's corporation, which outspent its PAC 5:1, has not disclosed who paid for these attacks.

The new Lobby Watch dissects Texas' brave new world of anonymous attack-dog politics.

Right-Wing Non-profit First to Hide Donors Behind "Citizens United"

Michael Quinn Sullivan's non-profit organization, Texans for Fiscal Responsibility, is the first Texas non-profit organization to pay for campaign adds and hide the identity of its donors. The widely criticized 'Citizen's United' Supreme Court ruling freed groups like Sullivans to raise and spend unlimited amounts on political campaigns without disclosing the people or corporations who paid the bill. Reports indicate Sullivan spent at least $241,000 on campaign ads -- much of it to defeat Speaker Joe Straus -- in the recent primary.
Read Patricia Kilday Hart's column on the Sullivan-Straus battle at the Houston Chronicle.

Lobby Watch:TLR, ART & Speaker Divide GOP-Majority Work

Speaker Joe Straus' Democratic allies complain that his financing of incumbent Republicans frees up other GOP players to target sitting Democrats. Lobby Watch follows the money, finding an almost perfect division of labor between Straus and the incumbent-targeting Associated Republicans of Texas. In contrast, Texans for Lawsuit Reform's pockets may be too deep for such specialization.

Follow the GOP PAC's housework in the new Lobby Watch.

TPJ Calls on Perry, Dewhurst & Straus To Investigate State Grant to Sematech

Did Sematech Cheat on Texas By Loving New York
in the Middle of its $40 Million Subsidy Deal?

TPJ today urged Texas’ top three officials who oversee the Texas Enterprise Fund to investigate if Sematech violated the 2004 contract it signed to obtain $40 million in state funds. TPJ urged the officials to either “enforce compliance or recover the funds that failed to deliver the promised benefits.”

Read the press release.
Read the letter to Perry, Dewhurst & Straus.

The Texas Observer:Speaker Straus' Other Horserace

Andrew Wheat's feature article in the Observer concludes that Texas House Speaker Joe Straus' family could earn millions if slots at racetracks are legalized.

Read the full story at the Texas Observer.

Lobby Watch: Lobby Floods New Speaker With Wealth

Rep. Joe Straus announced he had the votes to be House speaker during the six-month fundraising blackout that surrounded the 2009 legislative session. After session's end, the new speaker mobilized the lobby and raised $721,050 in one week--double what he had bagged over the preceding two years.

Read the full Lobby Watch.