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.

This article is Part 4 of a four-part series demonstrating how the money in a lobby sector can impact state politics and legislation. Read the first three articles here, here, and here.

On May 1, voters in Lubbock passed Proposition A, a local ordinance that designated the city as a “sanctuary for the unborn,” with 62 percent of voters voting in favor. The election, which made Lubbock the largest city in the United States to establish such a designation, attracted heavy campaign spending by both sides as the trail to Election Day heated up.