PIRG: Mortgaged House: Weighty War Chests: The House’s Most Aggressive Fundraisers

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Mortgaged House

E. Weighty War Chests: The House’s Most Aggressive Fundraisers

Speaker Pete Laney, D-Hale Center, led the House with $1,068,818 in contributions. Nine other House members raised more than $200,000. This group includes the five best- endowed committee chairs mentioned above (Reps. Berlanga, Stiles, Junell, Alexander and Counts). The other heavy hitters include: Reps. Ron Clark, R-Sherman; Bill Siebert, R-San Antonio; Gene Seaman, R-Corpus Christi; and Harryette Ehrhardt, D-Dallas. The 10 members of the House $200,000-Plus Club raised more than $3.4 million—or 23 percent of the House total.

A striking characteristic of the 10 members of the House $200,000-Plus Club is that all but one of them share a common backer in Texans for Lawsuit Reform (TLR)-the biggest PAC in Texas. Each of the top 10 fund-raisers in the House took at least $2,000 from TLR, except for Rep. Hugo Berlanga, who took no TLR money. Only three $200,000- Plus Club members (Reps. Clark, Seaman and Counts) won by a margin of less than 10 percent of the vote.

House War Chests

10 Fattest Campaigns
Dist.	Member	Party	Amount	TLR $
85	Pete Laney	D	$1,068,818	$5,000
34	Hugo Berlanga	D	$363,550	$0
62	Ron Clark	R	$327,920	$122,923
21	Mark Stiles	D	$315,978	$4,500
72	Rob Junell	D	$242,773	$5,000
12	Clyde Alexander	D	$228,333	$9,000
121	Bill Siebert	R	$225,465	$4,000
32	Gene Seaman	R	$221,355	$61,035
70	David Counts	D	$221,098	$17,000
107	Harryette Ehrhardt	D	$214,368	$2,000
	Totals		$3,429,658	$230,458

10 Leanest Campaigns
Dist.	Member	Party	Amount
14	Bill Roman	R	$9,810
3	Pete Patterson	D	$12,825
130	John Culberson	R	$14,853
97	Anna Mowery	R	$17,070
117	John Longoria	D	$18,600
16	Bob Rabuck	R	$19,905
69	John Hirschi	D	$20,750
38	Jim Solis	D	$21,095
110	Jesse Jones	D	$23,669
68	Charles Finnell	D	$24,476
	Total		$183,053

Six House members were elected after having raised less than 10 percent of the money wielded by the $200,000-Plus Club, with three House members raising less than $15,000 (Reps. John Culberson, R-Houston, Pete Patterson, D-Brookston, and Bill Roman, R- College Station). Two of these men ran unopposed, however, while the third, Rep. Roman, won a special election after a short campaign season.