“Therefore, whatever you have said in the dark shall be heard in the light …”
Luke 12:3
This primary season, Political Action Committees flooded our mailboxes with junk, oversaturated the TV market with commercials, and ventured into the streaming realm to run false and misleading political advertisements.
If you noticed, many of the PACs and even “non-profits,” such as “Texans United for a Conservative Majority,” “Texas Family Project,” “Texans for Fiscal Responsibility,” “Make Liberty Win,” and “Texas Gun Rights,” along with the voucher lobby, spent all their ad time trashing Republican incumbents, without any commentary on the opponent.
While those ads never mentioned the names of challengers, those incumbents’ challengers certainly benefited from those attack campaigns. Unfortunately, under current Texas law, the public is not privy to the financial details of these types of PACs or “dark money” support to political candidates. While it is clear who they are against, it is hidden who they support, and that huge level of support never shows up on a candidate’s public financial report.
Tim Dunn and Farris Wilks, almost exclusively, finance the most powerful PACs in Texas. Candidates who are supported by these PACs run counter to representative government, as receiving Dunn/Wilks PAC support requires 100% compliance with their aims and 100% purity with their political doctrine.
Many of these supported fringe candidates are so toxic that the PACs must exploit these loopholes in campaign finance laws to buy elections.
A Dunn/Wilks funded political candidate will look you in the eye and say, “I don’t take money from PACs.” Where I am from, that’s what we call “Lying like a rug.”
This past session, I authored a bill that would have drastically increased transparency in Texas elections. HB 2629 was the most significant campaign transparency bill filed in the 88th legislative session. It required certain persons or political organizations to report the candidate they support if there is a cost spent opposing another candidate in the same race.
This bill passed both chambers with flying colors. The record vote in the Senate was 31-0 and the record vote in the House was 147-1. The only opposition was the disgraced and expelled, Dunn/Wilks-supported, Representative Bryan Slaton.
Yet then, in the face of this overwhelming support, Governor Greg Abbott vetoed the bill. With one swift stroke of his pen, he killed this vital, supermajority-supported bill.
Why would the Governor oppose PAC transparency and accountability? Has Abbott joined the ranks of many other Dunn/Wilks-compliant state officials? How much “dark money” support has Abbott received? Did Abbott not want voters to know how much money was spent against those who stood up to the voucher lobby, supported public schools, and defied the Dunn/Wilks attempt to privatize our public schools?
It bears repeating, only two individuals opposed this much needed campaign transparency bill: disgraced, expelled former State Representative Bryan Slaton and Governor Greg Abbott.
Buying candidates and buying elections is too easy for billionaires.
This is not the Texas way.
Governor Abbott owes Texas an explanation!
Glenn Rogers is the State Representative for House District 60 in Texas, which includes Parker County. Rogers will leave office in January of 2025.
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