[ Report Home | Previous Page | Next Page ] Texas PACs 2000 Election Cycle Education: $542,389

From 1998 to 2000, spending by Education PACs dropped 13 percent. This drop occurred despite the fact that wealthy supporters of the University of Texas at Austin and Texas A&M established two new PACs that spent a total of $302,742 to pass a constitutional amendment that lets state universities spend the capital gains of their endowment funds. These PACs were UT’s Texans for Proposition 17 and A&M’s Proposition 17 for a Better Texas. Perhaps because top UT supporters diverted their money to pass Proposition 17, spending by UT’s Friends of the University PAC dropped 46 percent in 2000.

The biggest change among Education PACs in 2000 was the virtual disappearance of school voucher PACs. For more on this trend see the “Vanishing PACs” section.