Texas PACS: A Roundup of the Special Interests Driving Texas' Political Action Committees

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Major Ideological
& Single-Issue PACs

The diverse ideological and single-issue PAC category contains 311 PACs that spent $16 million (29 percent of all PAC money). In contrast to the business PAC categories (most of which promote the interests of a particular private-sector industry), these ideological and single-issue PACs promote a particular issue or ideology that may or may not reflect a pro-business agenda. Included in this category are PACs that seek to influence issues that run the gamut. These include:

• Rewriting state tort or environmental laws;
• Expanding or curtailing the rights of minorities, pregnant women or gun owners;
• Increasing or decreasing spending on state budget items; and
• Electing the candidates of a particular political party.

Partisan/Ideological PACs
PACs classified as either Republican/Conservative or Democratic/Liberal PACs accounted for 81 percent of all ideological and single-issue money.

Fifty Democratic/Liberal PACs spent $6.8 million,³² while 157 Republican/Conservative PACs spent $6.3 million. With three times as many Republican/Conservative PACs than Democratic/Liberal PACs, the GOP/Conservative machine is decentralized down to the level of a slew of small, county-based Republican women’s PACs.

Although Democratic/Liberal PACs edge out Republican/Conservative PACs in this category, Republicans gallop away with a decisive financial lead when other ideological and single-issue PAC categories are examined. As shown below, much of the vast sums of money moved by business PACs, tort PACs and school-voucher PACs comes from GOP donors and benefits GOP candidates. The only third-party PAC expenditures in this report came from the Natural Law Party of Texas. It spent $3,262.

Democratic/Liberal
The overwhelming majority of the $6.8 million spent by the 50 Democratic/Liberal PACs came from PACs that exclusively benefit Democratic Party candidates.

The four largest of these PACs accounted for 78 percent of Democratic/Liberal spending. The Texas Democratic Party dominated, spending more than $4 million. The 21st Century Democrats, an independent Democratic farm team that pays young people to work on Democratic campaigns, spent $492,942. Finally, two large PACs defend Democratic seats in the Texas House and the Senate. The Texas Senate Democratic Campaign Committee spent $413,029 in an unsuccessful attempt to prevent a Republican Senate majority from emerging from the November 1996 elections. The Texas Partnership PAC, which spent $304,659, has managed to cling on to a Democratic House majority so far, but not without losing ground. The likelihood of this PAC losing more seats in November 1998 is implicit in the fact that two of the three powerful members heading the Texas Partnership are not seeking reelection.³³

While the vast majority of the remaining Democratic/Liberal money comes from local Democratic Party chapters, three PACs are exceptional. Former Governor Ann Richards and former Lieutenant Governor William Hobby cashed out their war chests into general-purpose PACs after leaving office. The PAC of governor-turned-tobacco-lobbyist Ann Richards spent a whopping $254,110, largely to support Democrats. The Hobby Texas Fund, which spent $64,273, has given to arts causes and more recently to the Comptroller campaign of son Paul Hobby.

Finally, Texoma PAC spent $32,715 on Democratic legislative and judicial candidates in the Sherman area. The PAC reportedly formed to counter the local influence of Texans for Lawsuit Reform (TLR). Rep. Ron Clark, R-Sherman, won a hotly contested 1996 race after taking $122,923 (44 percent of his war chest) from TLR.

Republican/Conservative
The overwhelming share of the money spent by the 157 Republican/Conservative PACs came from PACs that exclusively benefit GOP candidates. The Texas Republican Campaign Committee led GOP spending with almost $2.3 million. The Republican National State Elections Committee (RNSEC), a Republican National Committee subsidiary that channels money to state campaigns, spent $612,503. Significantly, however, a closer look reveals that RNSEC spent just $25,000 of this money on Texas politics. Together, these two GOP PACs account for 45 percent of the money spent by Republican/Conservative PACs.

The Associated Republicans of Texas (ART) out spent RNSEC’s total spending, coming through with $757,148. ART raises most of its money from a small number of very wealthy Texans. Almost half of the money flowing into ART’s PAC between the November 1996 elections and June 1998 came from just 15 donors of $10,000 or more. William McMinn of the Sterling [chemical] Group led with an astonishing $127,000; Sterling principal Gordon Cain tossed in another $25,000. Independent of the Texas Republican Party, ART pours its prodigious funds into close, critical races that it believes the GOP can win. Recently, ART has focused on winning a GOP majority in the Texas House.

The 76 in ’96 PAC focused its $594,822 on the goal of winning a GOP House majority. In 1996, 21 donors who gave $10,000 or more accounted for 63 percent of all the money this PAC raised. The leading donors were:

• Robert McNair ($100,000), owner of Cogen Technologies, a private utility company;
• The PAC of Alabama-based Compass Bancshares ($50,000); and
• The A+ PAC for Parental School Choice ($25,000).³⁴

After failing to win the needed majority of 76 GOP House seats in 1996, the treasurer of 76 in ’96, Milton Rister (an ally of Rep. Tom Craddick, R-Midland), resurfaced with a successor PAC, Eight in ’98. This PAC took its name from the number of new House seats that the Republicans must win in November 1998 to rule the 1999 legislative session. Contributions to this PAC from June 1997 through June 1998 followed a familiar pattern: 61 percent of the money came from 11 wealthy donors who gave $10,000 or more. In fact, 30 percent of the money came from just three Sterling [chemical] Group executives (William McMinn, Gordon Cain and Virgil Waggoner). McNair and the Sterling Group executives also were major underwriters of Texans for Lawsuit Reform (see below).

The Free Enterprise PAC ($298,582) publishes the Texas Conservative Report, which publicizes voting score cards on members of the Texas Legislature. The PAC’s objective is to promote free enterprise, private property, traditional values and limited government. The $25,000 that the Free Enterprise PAC gave conservative Republican Lieutenant Governor candidate Rick Perry was that candidate’s largest PAC contribution.³⁵

Most PACs further down the food chain of this Republican/Conservative category are locally based Republican organizations. A few larger conservative PACs that lack official ties to the party warrant mention. For example, the C Club ($84,113) is one of the oldest conservative, Republican-leaning PACs in what was once a Democratic state.³⁶

Texans for Governmental Integrity ($38,172) is one of several political piggy banks that distributes the largess of James Leininger. Leininger is the ultraconservative San Antonio manufacturer of hi-tech hospital beds who is a major underwriter of efforts to weaken tort laws in Texas and introduce vouchers for private schools (see the “Education” section for more on Leininger). Texans for Governmental Integrity has bankrolled candidates who would advance these issues on school boards, the State Board of Education (e.g. Donna Ballard) or in the courts (e.g. Justice Craig Enoch).³⁷

Three other noteworthy conservative PACs spent more than $10,000 apiece. Developers and property-rights forces unsuccessfully attempted to use the Take Back Austin Coalition ($19,112) as a vehicle to reassert control over environmental sympathizers on the Austin City Council. Oil and developer czar Ray Hunt helped form the Dallas Breakfast Group ($12,500) to further boost big business’ influence over local city and school races in the Metroplex. Finally, the American Family Association of Texas ($11,867) is a Christian Right group active in school board races. It led the push to get the State Board of Education to divest $45 million in Walt Disney stock in July 1998. The group objects to the violent and sexual content of some of the company’s recordings and films, as well as to its providing benefits to the gay partners of its employees.³⁸

Tort Law

Three single-interest PACs seeking weaker tort laws spent almost $1.6 million (10 percent of all ideological and single-issue PAC expenditures). Each of these PACs represents powerful corporate defense interests that portray themselves as victims of a civil justice system that they say is tilted against them. Nonetheless, workers, malpractice victims and consumers (who turn to the plaintiff’s bar when injured by corporations) do not have a single special PAC devoted to this issue. (The “Lawyers and Lobbyists” section presents attorney PAC expenditures).

The 800-pound gorilla of corporate tort PACs is Texans for Lawsuit Reform (TLR), the largest single-issue PAC in Texas, which spent $1.3 million. Fewer than 20 tycoon families, many of which made their millions in dangerous, litigious industries (including toxic chemicals, construction and the oil industry) account for half of all of TLR’s PAC money. TLR’s big donors are overwhelmingly Republicans; 73 percent of TLR’s PAC money in the 1997 election cycle benefited GOP candidates.³⁹ Recently, TLR was implicated in a secret fundraising drive that appealed to wealthy conservatives nationwide for funds to topple the Democratic majority in the Texas House (see the “Education” section).

The Texas Civil Justice League (TCJL) operates an older tort PAC that spent $243,494. TCJL is a coalition of business and corporate interests that advocate tort law “reforms” to make it harder for injured consumers and citizens to recover damages from its members. During the 1997 legislative session, TCJL lobbied for bills to:

• Shield business owners from sharing liability for crimes committed on their properties; and
• Prohibit non-Texan asbestos victims from suing responsible asbestos manufacturers in Texas courts.

Finally, convenience stores organized the Retail Employee Security Act (RESA) PAC, which spent $8,010 to push a tort bill that failed in the 1997 session. Had RESA passed the legislature, convenience store owners that implemented basic security measures would have been released from their liability for assaulted employees.

Each year, assaults kill about 500 U.S. retail store clerks and injure thousands more. Police statistics in Dallas alone showed that there were 106 convenience store robberies in the first half of 1997, up from 61 during the same period in 1996. Convenience store owners have fought federal attempts to impose even voluntary night-time safety guidelines for clerks, fearing that their failure to adopt these guidelines would increase their liabilities for assaulted clerks.⁴⁰

Education

Thirty-four education PACs seeking to influence state educational policies and spending spent $789,785, or 5 percent of all ideological/single-issue PAC money. Just two of these PACs, which promote the controversial use of public tax money for private school vouchers, accounted for 58 percent of all educational PAC spending (for anti-voucher PACs, see the “Labor” section). The A+ PAC for Parental School Choice spent $452,306 and Putting Children First (PCF) spent another $7,327 to promote vouchers (though PCF raised more than $100,000).

PCF resembles a successor PAC to A+, which stopped reporting new contributions in early 1997, shortly before PCF reported its first cash infusions. A+ PAC’s treasurer, National Telecommunications executive James Mansour, resurfaced as PCF’s chairman. Finally, both PACs shopped at Wal-Mart for a key source of out-of-state funding (see “Prep Schoolers: Who’s Vouching for Vouchers?”).

Most of the other education PACs lack the intrigue and financial muscle of the voucher PACs. The next largest education PACs are Friends of the University [of Texas] ($142,725) and Friends of the University of Houston ($40,592), which angle for greater state spending on their campuses. A PAC affiliated with a for-profit provider of adult higher education, the Apollo Group, came next, spending $27,250.

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