[ Report Home | Previous Page | Next Page ] Mortgaged House I. High-Flying PACs: Texas’ Most Powerful Special Interests

Between July 1995 and year-end 1996, TLS registers 3,864 contributions of $1,000 or more to Texas House candidates. These large contributions amounted to more than $6.8 million. Almost 1,200 PACs and businesses contributed $4.5 million worth of these big checks, or about two-thirds of this money. The remaining whopper checks came from individuals.

The top 20 PACs and businesses account for almost $3 million, or two-thirds of this sector’s large contributions. When it comes to huge political checks, nobody comes close to Texans for Lawsuit Reform (TLR). In the 18 months ending in December 1996, TLR wrote $604,795 worth of four- and five-figure checks to House candidates. TLR, in turn, obtained almost half of its money from just 18 of Texas’ wealthiest families. Though TLR calls itself “bipartisan,” 73 percent of the money that it gave to current House members went to Republicans. In the close races where it concentrated its funds, TLR gave Republicans 89 percent of its money.⁹

Viewed as a kind of half-time score board, the preceding graph illustrates who is fighting and who is winning such heady legislative battles as:

• The fight for partisan majority control of the House;
• The struggle over whether or not Texas should weaken state tort laws further; and
• Whether unions are to have any meaningful effect on legislation.

When the Legislature plays the game of checkbook politics, the Democratic Party, the Texas Trial Lawyers and the unions assemble on the field, but they watch the point spread widen

House Special: Biggest Interests in the House

Interest or Industry Amount Republican Party $1,030,292 Tort Reform PACs $617,295 Health Care $411,060 Telecommunications $293,550 Banks & Insurance $261,132 Plaintiff Lawyers $260,730 Other Politicians $228,813 Democratic Party $192,799 Real Estate $172,190 Defense Lawyers $163,063 Unions $152,125 Education $132,825 Utilities $130,460 Transportation $108,450 Construction $103,471 Total $4,258,255

each quarter. The only union found among top House contributors—the State Teachers Association—is lost in a thicket of business interests. TLR outspent the Trial Lawyers three to one, even as other business PACs spent heavily to push pet liability-protection bills.¹⁰ Finally, the Democratic Party and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee were outspent five to one by their opponents, the Republican Party, Associated Republicans of Texas and “76 in ’96.” The real losers in this corrupt game of special-interest checkbook politics, however, are regular Texas voters.

Similar trends emerge when major PAC and business contributions are broken down by industries and interests.

Altogether, Republican Party PACs spent more than $1 million, compared with less than $200,000 from Democratic PACs. The Texas Trial Lawyers and individual plaintiff law firms spent one-third of what House candidates took from tort reform PACs (TLR and the Texas Civil Justice League) and from corporate defense lawyers. Finally, business spending blew political spending by unions out of the water.

Again, the real story is that special interests are seizing House influence at the expense of regular voters.