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ChrisTackettNow
@christackettnow
, 24 tweets, 13 min read Read on Twitter
Pulling out a longer term lens and graphed a few things since 2008. It's striking how things are escalating.
Long term lens #1: Empower Texans
This is total contributions in, by year, and the major donors. Remember, election cycles are 13-14, 15-16, 17-18. Big funding surge when Paxton & Patrick run. Can we stop with any talk that ET is grassroots? It's not now, and never was.
#txlege
Long term lens #2: Wilks Brothers
This is total contributions made, by year, who they gave to. Pay attention folks.
2012 cycle - $106,500
2014 cycle - $908,955
2016 cycle - $3,344,734
2018 cycle - $5,197,988
#txlege #txed
Long term lens #3: Texas Right To Life PAC
This is contributions in, by year, and the major donors. Wilks started giving in 2008 and pulled the rest of ET World with him. 9 big donors in common with ET.
2010 cycle - $40k
2012 - $212k
2014 - $673k
2016 - $2.1m
2018 - $3.1m
#txlege
Long term lens #4: Texas Public Policy Foundation
As a non-profit, they don’t disclose donors, which means the dollars going in are all “dark”. You get stuck back tracking through prior year 990 forms filed with the IRS to even attempt to piece things together.
Long term lens #4: Texas Public Policy Foundation
Here are the dollars in from 2013 - 2016 (Most recent 990 available is 2016)
2013: $5,341,794
2014: $8,568,131
2015: $10,658,748
2016: $18,029,964

Notice what the trend line is doing?
#txlege
Tim Dunn is the Vice Chairman on the TPPF Board Of Directors. There are several other ET donors on the board as well. Does that give you a sense of the philosophy and direction?
#txlege
With the knowledge that Dunn and other ET donors are on the board of TPPF, how about we take the same Long Term Lens looks I did above, and scale the dollars in the same way. How do the dollars into TPPF compare to dollars into ET, what Wilks puts in, and TRL? Scary.
#txlege
Now that Jeff Leach has announced he's leaving the Freedom Caucus in the TX House, let's throw the long term lens on those legislators who were a part of the Freedom Caucus in the 85th Session. Timeframe will be the 2012 - 2018 Election cycles.
#txlege
Long Term Lens 5a - Texas House Freedom Caucus
Matt Shaefer
2012 Cycle - $150k ($0 ET World)
2014 - $429k ($249k ETW) 58.2%
2016 - $71.8k ($15.5k ETW) 21.6%
2018 - $184k ($64.7k ETW) 35.1%
#txlege
Long Term Lens 5b - Texas House Freedom Caucus
Bill Zedler
2012 Cycle - $152k ($8k ET World) 5.2%
2014 - $62.1k ($9k ETW) 14.5%
2016 - $152k ($39k ETW) 25.6%
2018 - $111k ($29k ETW) 26%
#txlege
Long Term Lens 5c - Texas House Freedom Caucus
Matt Shaheen
2014 Cycle - $251k ($122k ET World) 48.7%
2016 - $138k ($15.6k ETW) 11.3%
2018 - $424k ($72.5k ETW) 17.1%
#txlege
Long Term Lens 5d - Texas House Freedom Caucus
Jeff Leach
2012 Cycle - $339k ($11.2k ET World) 3.3%
2014 - $233k ($9k ETW) 3.9%
2016 - $352k ($20k ETW) 5.7%
2018 - $364k ($21k ETW) 5.8%
#txlege
Long Term Lens 5e - Texas House Freedom Caucus
Tony Tinderholt
2014 Cycle - $179k ($97k ET World) 54.3%
2016 - $341k ($218k ETW) 64.1%
2018 - $106k ($52k ETW) 48.8%
#txlege
Long Term Lens 5f - Texas House Freedom Caucus
Jonathan Stickland
2012 Cycle - $165k ($14.7k ET World) 8.9%
2014 - $529k ($304k ETW) 57.4%
2016 - $943k ($711k ETW) 75.3%
2018 - $733k ($594k ETW) 81%
#txlege
Long Term Lens 5g - Texas House Freedom Caucus
Kyle Biedermann
2016 Cycle - $314k ($91.5k ET World) 29.2%
2018 - $364k ($209k ETW) 57.6%
#txlege
Long Term Lens 5h - Texas House Freedom Caucus
Briscoe Cain
2014 Cycle - $22k ($0k ET World)
2016 - $320k ($170k ETW) 53.2%
2018 - $224k ($154k ETW) 68.6%
#txlege
Long Term Lens 5I - Texas House Freedom Caucus
Matt Krause
2012 Cycle - $152k ($19.6k ET World) 12.9%
2014 - $177k ($65.5k ETW) 36.9%
2016 - $226k ($42k ETW) 18.6%
2018 - $221k ($20k ETW) 9%
#txlege
Long Term Lens 5J - Texas House Freedom Caucus
Mike Lang
2016 Cycle - $442k ($327k ET World) 74.2%
2018 - $550k ($424k ETW) 77.2%
#txlege
Long Term Lens 5K - Texas House Freedom Caucus
Matt Rinaldi (lost seat)
2012 Cycle - $69k ($10.9k ET World) 15.6%
2014 - $213k ($93.3k ETW) 43.7%
2016 - $466k ($310k ETW) 66.6%
2018 - $825k ($392k ETW) 47.5%
#txlege
Long Term Lens 5L - Texas House Freedom Caucus
Valoree Swanson
2016 Cycle - $352k ($227k ET World) 64.7%
2018 - $186k ($103k ETW) 55.6%
#txlege
You put it all together, you not only have an eye chart, but you can see where the blue bars (total contributions) and the green bars (ET World contributions) are close to the same height. Those are the folks in the deepest.
#txlege
Let's stack up just the ET World dollars. You can see where those in ET World have heavily invested. There is $1.6 million invested in just Jonathan Stickland. $806k in Rinaldi, $752k in Lang, $367k in Tinderholt, $331k in Swanson, $324k in Cain, $301k in Biedermann.
#txlege
Here are the % of ET World dollars vs total contributions in each cycle. It feels fairly obvious to me as to why Jeff Leach felt he didn't need the Freedom Caucus. He never took more than 5.8% of his $ from ET World. As the "brand" took a hit in 2018, time to split.
#txlege
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More from @christackettnow see all

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ChrisTackettNow
@christackettnow
The campaign finance site owned by Empower Texans did a look back at the 2018 elections on 12/18/18. The question they asked was “Who’s Really Buying Texas?”
#txlege
The site (again, owned by ET) pushes this “Context matters” point, but then provide a fairly skewed context. They mashed all of the dollars spent in campaigns into one massive bucket. Then they point to themselves and say “see, we didn’t give that much”.
#txlege
By rolling everything up together, they obfuscate the reality that a handful of large donor groups DOMINATE the political landscape in certain races. It’s not the everyday Texans that drive our politics.
#txlege
Read 35 tweets
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ChrisTackettNow
@christackettnow
Midterms are done, at least as far as contribution to campaigns are concerned. There have been several looks at spending by the far right groups, specifically Empower Texans. I think they are seeing part of the picture, but not the whole enchilada. This will be the enchilada.
When I define ET World, it's three categories of donors to Texas elections
The first category of donor in ET World is
(ET) = Empower Texans PAC, Texans For Fiscal Responsibility PAC, and Texas Right To Life PAC
#txlege
Continuing the levels of ET World
The second category of donor is
(ET9) = The 9 largest donors to the Empower Texans PAC.
These 9 donors make up 97% of the ET PAC, 96% of the TFFR PAC, and 78% of TRL. This overwhelming funding to the 3 PACs is why all three are flagged as ET
Read 43 tweets
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ChrisTackettNow
@christackettnow
How did ET World do last night? Here are the pie charts for the TX House and Senate, with all contributions going to ET backed candidates from those in the Empower Texans orbit from 05/23 - 10/27/18. Green are winners.
#txlege
Some big plays that didn't get winners in the TX Senate. Who were the ET World backers for Konni Burton in SD10 from 5/23 - 10/27/18? Who were the backers for Don Huffines in SD16?
#txlege
Some big plays didn't get winners in the TX House either. Who were the ET World backers for Matt Rinaldi in HD115 from 5/23 - 10/27/18? Who were the backers for Deanna Metzger in HD107? And what about Jonathan Boos in HD113? And let's include Lisa Luby Ryan in HD114 too.
#txlege
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