On Monday, approximately 58 members of the Texas House of Representatives boarded private planes in Austin and flew to Washington, D.C. to avoid voting on an election integrity bill. According to the statement released by Texas Democratic House Caucus Chair Chris Turner (HD 101, Arlington and Grand Prairie) and several other House leaders, “Today, Texas …
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You asked, we answered. We were recently contacted by a reader wanting to know who leads the institution responsible for regulating campaign finance in Texas. The Texas Ethics Commission The Texas Ethics Commission (TEC), an influential body that provides “guidance on various public ethics laws” in Texas, is a powerful entity in Texas state politics. …
Campaign finance filings for Virginia state legislative races show Democrats outpaced Republicans in fundraising. Between January 1, 2021, and May 7, 2021, Democratic primary election candidates outraised Republican candidates by 400 percent. Democrats have a 21-19 majority in the Virginia State Senate and a 55-45 majority in the Virginia State House. State legislative primary elections …
New campaign finance filings for Pennsylvania state legislative special elections show Republicans outpaced Democrats in fundraising. Between January 1, 2021, and May 17, 2021, Republican general election candidates outraised Democratic candidates by 13 percent. Republicans have a 28-21 majority in the Pennsylvania State Senate and a 113-89 majority in the Pennsylvania State House. State legislative …
Lobbying is big business in Austin. Over $667 million was spent by lobbyist clients to influence lawmakers during the 2020 election cycle (January 1, 2019 – December 31, 2020), with the vast majority of that spending occurring while the Texas legislature was convened in 2019. Yet only two percent of all those expenditures have a …