This report focuses on the 1,209 so-called “general-purpose PACs” that were active in Texas in the 2008 election cycle. During this same period, however, dozens of so-called “specific purpose PACs” also reported political contributions and expenditures to the Texas Ethics Commission. Most of these specific-purpose PACs formed to exclusively support a specific candidate, as in the case of “Texans for Rick Perry.” Yet 19 other specific-purpose PACs spent more than $1,000 apiece for other purposes. Collectively they spent almost $2.3 million.

Nine committees that accounted for 69 percent of all specific-purpose PAC expenditures spent almost $1.8 million to influence proposed constitutional amendments. In 2007 lawmakers proposed 16 constitutional amendments to Texas voters, who passed every last one of them that November. The largest resulting PAC, Texans for Tax Relief, formed to push Proposition 6. This amendment allows individuals to exempt one personal vehicle from state value-added taxes. Almost all of this PAC’s money came from the Texas Association of Realtors Issues Mobilization PAC, which pumped close to $804,000 into this fund. The Independent Insurance Agents of Texas underwrote $15,000 more, while the Texas Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors donated $5,000 to the cause.

Top Specific-Purpose PACs

Amount Spent In 2008 Cycle	Political Action Committee
$828,366	Texans for Tax Relief*
$321,838	Texans to Cure Cancer*
$227,124	Yes on 15*
$194,315	Terri Hodge Defense Fund
$139,167	Texans For Honesty PAC
$122,731	Safer Roads Coalition*
$109,796	Citizens for Lone Star College
$107,815	Texans for Proposition Four*
$91,261	Planned Parenthood Prevention PAC*
$51,398	Texas Medical Association*
$36,525	Cure in Your Lifetime*
$25,180	Citizens for Economic Development
$13,138	H. Bartell Zachry
$7,074	Carol Alvarado Legal Fund
$2,579	PROP15 Families Against Cancer Tax*
$2,527	www.cookecitizens.org
$2,260	Friends of Sandy Kress
$1,607	Keep Your Rights
$1,545	ACC San Marcos Yes

                                        *PAC primarily concerned with a constitutional amendment.

 

Lance Armstrong sheds the yellow jersey.

Another big-money amendment was Proposition 15, which authorized the state to create the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas and to issue $3 billion in bonds over 10 years to fund cancer research. Prop. 15 metastasized into six specific-purpose PACs that spent $730,725. The largest of these, Texans To Cure Cancer, was associated with cancer and Tour De France champion Lance Armstrong. The PAC’s treasurer, former state Comptroller John Sharp, reported spending $321,838 in the 2008 cycle. This understates the PAC’s muscle.

Texans To Cure Cancer reported receiving $543,304, for example, from its top two donors: the Lance Armstrong Foundation ($296,061) and the American Cancer Society ($247,243). Yet much of this money took the form of in-kind contributions, such as the Armstrong Foundation’s independent expenditure of more than $75,000 on a Prop. 15 bus tour. These independent expenditures are not included in the expenditure totals reported by Texans to Cure Cancer. Other big donors to Texans To Cure Cancer include now-indicted gambling executive Gordon Graves ($20,050)⁴⁷ and the National Dialogue on Cancer Foundation ($15,000).

Governor Rick Perry’s House liaison Chris Cronn took a leave of absence to form cancer-bond PAC Yes On 15, a vehicle for corporations to promote cancer research and curry gubernatorial favor.⁴⁸ Here again, Yes On 15’s $227,124 in reported expenditures grossly understate its true influence. This is because six media companies donated a total of $991,350 in advertising to the gubernatorial cancer-bond PAC. For cash, Yes On 15 relied heavily on an injection of $175,000 from pharmaceutical interests led by the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America trade group. In contrast, Texans To Cure Cancer renounced drug-company money.⁴⁹

Yes On 15 PAC’s 15 Contributors

Contributor	Amount
Time Warner Cable*	$500,000
Comcast*	$150,000
Clear Channel*	$135,000
Lamar Advertising*	$110,400
Pharma. Research & Manufacturers of America†	$100,000
Suddenlink*	$72,500
AT&T	$50,000
Pfizer, Inc.†	$25,000
Novartis†	$25,000
USAA	$25,000
Reagan Outdoor*	$23,450
Eli Lilly†	$20,000
Centerpoint Energy	$5,000
Genentech†	$5,000
Texans to Cure Cancer	$100
TOTAL:	$1,246,450

                                   * Provided in-kind contribution of advertising.
                                   † Drug-company interest contributing cash.

 

Planned Parenthood formed a special Prevention PAC that spent $91,261 promoting Prop. 15. This was almost double what a special Texas Medical Association PAC spent on Prop. 15. Planned Parenthood’s PAC spent its money on mailers and robo calls. The doctors’ PAC spent on radio and print advertising and contributed $14,000 to Texans To Cure Cancer. Cathy Bonner, who sat on Texans To Cure Cancer’s board, founded Cure in Your Lifetime PAC, which spent $36,525. Bonner heads the marketing firm Bonner & Associates and previously served as Governor Ann Richards' head of the Texas Department of Commerce.⁵⁰ Both of her parents had cancer. The top donors to this PAC were Sharon Hyde of Austin ($25,000) and Fulbright & Jaworski law firm ($10,000). Cure in Your Lifetime’s largest expenditure preceding voter approval of the bonds was $10,000 on a phone-bank blitz. At the end of 2007 the PAC transferred $17,897 in leftover funds to Bonner’s Kill Cancer.org.

PROP15 Families Against Cancer Tax was the only PAC organizing opposition to the measure. Austin software engineer Don Zimmerman, a backer of Libertarian Republican Ron Paul, formed this PAC late in the game, reporting less than $3,000 in expenditures. This PAC reported one contribution of $1,000 from James Skaggs, an ex-Tracor CEO who has led opposition to light-rail initiatives in Austin. Despite its negligible size, this PAC may have influenced the local Prop. 15 vote.⁵¹ Just 50.3 percent of Travis County voters approved the measure, compared to 61 percent statewide.

Safer Roads Coalition PAC paved the way for Prop. 12, which authorized $5 billion in state highway-improvement bonds.⁵² Three TXDOT contractors led the funding of this PAC: Williams Brothers Construction Co. ($25,000), JD Abrams, LP ($10,000) and APAC, Inc. ($10,000), a paving division of Old Castle, Inc. Safer Roads spent $122,731, mostly on mailers and PR fees. Lawrence Olsen of the Texas Good Roads & Transportation Association trade group served as the PAC’s spokesman. Another huge construction contractor, San Antonio’s H. Bartell Zachry, set up a specific-purpose PAC that spent $13,138 to distribute a letter to employees listing Zachry’s preferred candidates for 28 federal, state and local offices.⁵³ The letter also endorsed a San Antonio term-limit initiative.

Texans for Proposition Four spent $107,815 to authorize the state to issue up to $1 billion in bonds to fund maintenance and construction projects at 11 state agencies. Like media coverage of the issue, Texans for Proposition Four’s finances give the impression that all this money benefits the Texas Historical Commission (THC) and the Texas Parks & Wildlife Department (TPWD). These agencies arguably boast more voter appeal than do other Prop. 4 beneficiaries. Prop. 4 also authorized funding for five other state departments (Adjutant General’s, Aging, Criminal Justice, Health Services and Public Safety), two other commissions (Youth and Building & Procurement); as well as the state schools for the Blind and the Deaf. Data provided by the Texas Comptroller indicate that the state issued $93 million in Prop. 4 bonds as of April 2009. Two-thirds of this money was earmarked for the departments of Criminal Justice and Public Safety and a total of just 14 percent for the Historical Commission and Parks & Wildlife.

Allocation of Proposition 4 Bonds To Date

State Agency	Bonds Issued To Date	Percent of Total
Criminal Justice	$40,580,518	44%
Public Safety	$20,279,889	22%
Aging & Disability	$10,082,984	11%
Historical Commission	$10,000,000	11%
Health Services	$9,060,166	10%
Parks & Wildlife	$2,635,146	3%
TOTAL:	$92,638,703	100%

                                       Source: Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts

 

John Nau III

As with Prop. 15, the governor cast a big shadow over passage of Prop. 4. Four of Texans for Proposition Four’s top donors are gubernatorial appointees to the board of the Texas Parks & Wildlife Commission, a plum post that governors long have bestowed upon big donors.54 Texas Historical Commission appointee John Nau, who runs a Houston beer distributorship, also was a big donor to Perry and Texans for Proposition Four. That PAC paid $70,168 for radio ads to Crossroads Media, a Virginia-based shop favored by Governor Perry’s campaign strategist, Dave Carney.55 Governor Perry, Carney and Nau took a Bahamas excursion together in 2004 to discuss school finances.56 Former Perry Press Secretary Ray Sullivan, a longtime lobbyist for Nau’s company, did Prop. 4 work for Texans for Proposition Four and the Texas Historical Commission. Texans for Proposition Four paid a $9,000 salary to conservationist George Bristol, who served as PAC treasurer.

Although TPWD and THC both promoted Prop. 4 there have been inter-agency rifts. When a proposal surfaced in 2007 to shift control of as many as 21 state historical sites from TPWD to Nau’s Commission, environmentalists cited then-THC Chairman Nau’s influence as the catalyst, arguing that he wanted to expand his turf. ⁵⁷ Another THC Commissioner, Sarita Armstrong Hixon, is from a family that produced a couple of Texas Parks and Wildlife Commissioners. Her late mother, Anne Armstrong, was Kay Bailey Hutchison’s political mentor.⁵⁸ In late January 2009 Hutchison released a list of former Perry supporters who now backed her campaign to evict Perry from the Governor’s Mansion in 2010. Notable among them was her new campaign finance chair John Nau.⁵⁹ Three weeks later, Governor Perry a new chairman of the Texas Historical Commission.⁶⁰

Top Contributors To Texans for Proposition Four

Amount	Contributor	Agency Link	Amount to Perry In 2006 Cycle	Perry-Donor Ranking In 2006 Cycle
$25,000	Dan Friedkin	TPWD Vice-Chair	$279,175	No.  4
$25,000	Peter Holt & Holt Co’s	TPWD Chair	$99,265	No. 20
$25,000	Silver Eagle Distributors	CEO John Nau THC Board	$60,783	No. 44
$10,000	Alice Walton		$110,000	No. 12
$10,000	Karen & George Hixon	Karen: TPWD Board	$80,000	No. 29
$3,311	Trust for Public Land	Ties to TPWD
$2,500	Assn. of Electric Co’s of TX
$2,000	J. Robert Brown	TPWD Board	$60,727	No. 45

 

The Terri Hodge Defense Fund is the largest specific-purpose PAC unrelated to state constitutional amendments. Dallas Democratic Rep. Terri Hodge faces a post-session federal trial on corruption charges. Prosecutors say Hodge used her office to promote the low-income housing projects of indicted Dallas developer Brian Potashnik, who provided the lawmaker with housing and utilities at no cost. The indictments also allege that Hodge, who has denied wrongdoing, advocated for criminal parolees in exchange for campaign funds.⁶¹

Rep. Terri Hodge (AP Photo)

Hodge’s defense fund reported paying Dallas defense firm Kearney Wynn almost $193,525 in the 2008 cycle, or virtually everything that the PAC raised. Dallas activist Joan Covici gave the defense fund $100,000 and loaned it $50,000 more. “If these [indictment] details are correct, this must be what it takes to get first-class, low-cost housing in Dallas — a city that has never been friendly to minorities,” Covici said when prosecutors unsealed the indictments in October 2007.62 Other top backers of Hodge’s defense fund include oilman James Graham ($25,000), Hodge’s campaign ($24,300), and then-Rep. Borris Miles ($5,000). Hodge’s defense fund also received a total of $1,700 from seven Aces Wired executives and employees just weeks before these same men were indicted on illegal-gambling charges unrelated to the Hodge case.63

A legal fund for then-Houston City Councilwoman Carol Alvarado was winding down during the 2008 cycle. Raising no money in the period, the Carol Alvarado Legal Fund paid $5,033 to lobbyist and PAC Treasurer Al Luna and $2,041 to Rusty Hardin & Associates, the firm that defended Alvarado in a 2006 ethics investigation. That probe into a payroll-padding scheme benefiting employees in Alvarado’s Mayor Pro Tem Office found no evidence that she had a hand in the scam.⁶⁴ Houston voters elected Alvarado to the Texas House in November 2008, nine months after Houston County District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal, who had investigated Alvarado, resigned amidst a scandal over his racist and pornographic e-mails.⁶⁵

Anthony Holm, the Patriot Group consultant and longtime spokesman for mega-donor Bob Perry, formed a specific-purpose PAC in late August 2008. Filing its initial disclosure on October 14, 2008 as the Give the Money Back PAC, Holm reported that the committee opposed four Democratic candidates: Senate candidate Joe Jaworski and House candidates Chris Turner, Emil Reichstadt and Rielle Hunter. As Holm knew, residency requirements barred Rielle Hunter from running for the Texas House. National media had reported two months earlier that Hunter had moved from North Carolina to California in late 2007—after the National Enquirer reported that she had had an affair with Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards.⁶⁶ The man who paid Hunter’s relocation costs was Edwards’ finance chair and Dallas trial lawyer Fred Baron, who was simultaneously bankrolling the rebirth of the Texas Democratic Party. When news of Baron’s role in the affair broke in August 2008, the Texas Republican Party pledged to link Rielle Hunter to Baron’s contributions to Democratic candidates in Texas. “Making that connection is absolutely in-bounds, and we would be remiss if we didn’t,” Texas Republican Party spokesman Hans Klinger told the Austin American-Statesman.⁶⁷ In the same article, Texans for Lawsuit Reform said Baron’s damage-control role in the Edwards-Hunter affair showed “an appalling disregard for honesty and integrity.” This was the apparent genesis of Give the Money Back PAC, which is now called Texans for Honesty.

Holm, whose firm has close ties to Texans for Lawsuit Reform,⁶⁸ filed the papers creating Give the Money Back PAC on October 14—less than two weeks after the news broke about Baron’s subsidy of Hunter. This new PAC raised just over $150,000 in the 2008 cycle from six donors: Bob Perry ($60,000), John Nau ($40,000), Texans for Lawsuit Reform ($35,000), the Patriot Group ($17,500), Holm ($3,600) and Holm’s Patriot colleague Denis Calabrese ($100). The PAC spent most of this money on mailings. Yet making Rielle Hunter an issue in Texas legislative campaigns may have been a tough sell and Holm struggled with how to package it. Two days after forming Give the Money Back, Holm changed the PAC’s name to Texans for Honesty. Later that same day, he filed papers with the Ethics Commission to change the name to Texans for the Truth. This moniker stuck for four days before this PAC—funded by the top donor to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth—reverted to Texans for Honesty. Shortly thereafter the PAC’s nemesis made it impossible to ever Give the Money Back. Fred Baron died of cancer six days before the November 2008 election—in which his party picked up a few new legislative seats (yet John Edwards did not win the White House).

How to sell newspapers in an electronic age.

 

Citizens for Lone Star College spent almost $110,000 promoting a $420 million bonds initiative for this Houston-area school in May 2008. Argyle-based Citizens for Economic Development spent over $25,000 on a measure to legalize alcohol sales in that dry town; Treasurer Mike Schroetke is married to an Argyle council member.⁶⁹ If contributions records are an indicator, www.cookecitizens.org represents the views of one citizen of Cooke County, which is on the Oklahoma border north of the Metroplex. Treasurer and lone donor Stephen Gaylord uses the PAC to promote his favorite candidates for local offices.

Ill-fated ACC San Marcos Yes, which promoted an aborted initiative to expand Austin Community College (ACC) into Hays County, transferred $1,545 to Friends of ACC PAC. ACC called off the vote in 2006 after the Hays County District Attorney announced a probe into petition-drive forgery allegations. During the scandal, State Rep. Patrick Rose fired longtime aide Mark Littlefield, who headed the signature drive.⁷⁰ Seventy-one people filed affidavits saying that their signatures were forged on the petition. Yet prosecutors wound up the case by filing a lone misdemeanor charge against Littlefield for possessing documents containing the forged signature of one deceased man.⁷¹

Friends of Sandy Kress is named after an Akin Gump attorney best known as an architect of George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind education policies. Kress is the treasurer of the PAC, which filed its “last” disclosure report in 2003.⁷² In the 2008 cycle, however, it donated $1,500 to Houston-based YES Prep Public Schools, which prepares low-income students for college.
 
McAllen-based Keep Your Rights PAC gave $700 to Austin consumer group Texas Watch and $300 to the farmworkers’ group LUPE.

 

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⁴⁷ “Eight-liner company indicted,” San Antonio Express-News, November 18, 2008.
⁴⁸ “A Herd of Headless Chickens,” Texas Weekly, September 17, 2007.
⁴⁹ Notwithstanding the fact that its top donor’s namesake has served as a prominent pitchman for Bristol-Myers Squibb (which did not fund Yes on 15).
⁵⁰ “Texan of the Year finalist: Cathy Bonner,” Dallas Morning News, December 27, 2007.
⁵¹ “Cancer Bonds Squeaked Past in Travis County,” Austin American-Statesman, November 8, 2007.
⁵² “$5 Billion Road Bond Package Outlined,” Tyler Morning Telegraph, September 25, 2007.
⁵³ Zachry’s slate of candidates can be seen at: http://204.65.203.5/public/388984.pdf
⁵⁴ See TPJ’s “Perry Patronage: Donor-Appointees Gave the Governor $3.8 Million, April 2006, http://info.tpj.org/docs/pdf/perrypatronagereport.pdf  and “Governor Bush’s Well-Appointed Texas Officials, October 2000, http://info.tpj.org/docs/2000/10/reports/appointments/cover.html
⁵⁵ For more on Crossroads, see TPJ’s “Supreme Spending: Political Expenditures By Texas’ High-Court Justices,” March 2008. http://info.tpj.org/reports/supremespending/index.html
⁵⁶ The Real Sins of Governor Perry, Austin Chronicle, February 27, 2004.
⁵⁷ The legislature enacted the switcheroo as HB 12 in 2007. “Debate Rages Over Whether To Shift Oversight of Monument Hill and 20 Other State Parks,” Houston Chronicle, January 22, 2007.
⁵⁸ Then-Vice President Dick Cheney shot Austin attorney Harry Whittington in a hunting accident at the ranch of Armstrong Hixon’s sister, Katharine Armstrong, in 2006. This prompted a probe by the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, which Katharine Armstrong previously chaired. TPWD sided with the official story—that a lone gunman shot Whittington. 
⁵⁹ “The Race for Texas Governor Is On,” Houston Chronicle, January 25, 2009.
⁶⁰ Chairman Jon Hansen. See “El Pasoan Named To Texas Historical Commission,” El Paso Times, February 19, 2009.
⁶¹ “3 Separate Trials in Tax Evasion Case,” Dallas Morning News, December 12, 2008; “Hodge May Be Tried Separately,” Dallas Morning News, October 3, 2008.
⁶² “State legislator indicted in Dallas public corruption case,” Austin American-Statesman, October 2, 2007.
⁶³ Aces’ indictees who supported Hodge’s defense are: Chairman Gordon Graves, CEO Kenneth Griffith, CFO Christopher Domijan, COO Cornwell Knowles, Controller Nicholas Holt, Vice President Jeremy Tyra and construction manager Clayton Adair.
⁶⁴ “Payroll Scandal Hasn’t Sapped Alvarado’s Clout,” Houston Chronicle, August 27, 2006.
⁶⁵ “Rosenthal cites prescription drugs in decision to quit DA post,” Houston Chronicle, February 16, 2008.
⁶⁶ “Lawyers’ Ties In Edwards Case suggest Extent of Hiding Affair,” New York Times, August 15, 2008.
⁶⁷ “Edwards Ally Vital To Texas Democrats,” Austin American-Statesman, August 16, 2008. Klinger has since become a spokesman for Kay Bailey Hutchison’s gubernatorial campaign.
⁶⁸ “Patriots for Hire,” Texas Observer, June 1, 2007.
⁶⁹ The PAC’s top donors were Stephen C. McGinnis (through an entity called Canyon Falls Town Center Partners, LP), the Argyle Chamber of Commerce and C. Douglas Chandler (through an entity called Dema Partners, LP). The PAC paid almost all of its money to the Eppstein Group to collect the needed signatures. “Local Option Propositions,” Denton Record-Chronicle, October 21, 2007.
⁷⁰ “Petition Probe,” San Marcos Daily Record, June 11, 2006.
⁷¹ “ACC Petition Fraud Inquiry Fizzles,” Austin American-Statesman, March 12, 2009.
⁷² The PAC previously supported four state Democrats: John Sharp, Paul Hobby, David Cain and Royce West.