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Total Texas PAC Spending

This amount was up 20 percent over the $43 million that 910 active PACs spent in the 1996 election cycle. These comparisons are based on a previous report, “Texas PACs: A Roundup of the Special Interests Driving Texas’ Political Action Committees."

The graph below shows a highly inflationary trend in Texas election-cycle PAC spending, which peaks in election years.

The large increase in Texas PAC spending in the 1998 cycle reflects in part the fact that 1998 was a gubernatorial election year. It also included a number of other down-ticket races for four-year offices that were absent from the 1996 election cycle. These include costly, hotly contested races for lieutenant governor, attorney general and comptroller.

This report breaks down Texas’ election cycle PAC expenditures according to their underlying interests. In the first cut, PAC expenditures are broken out into just three broad interest categories that illustrate the big picture. Subsequently, PAC interests are broken out into subcategories that help analyze PAC spending trends in greater detail.
 
 
 

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