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. 

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 legislator’s name attached to them. That’s right. In the entire two-year cycle, only $12,944,291 ever made its way onto a detailed report filed with the Texas Ethics Commission.

Our “Money Behind the Committee Chair” series spotlights the Texas lawmakers chairing prominent committees during the 87th Legislative Session, as well as the individual donors and PACs who have supported their campaigns leading up to this session.