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.

The For the People Act of 2021—known as H.R. 1 in the House and S.1 in the Senate—was introduced in the US House on January 4 as a primary concern of the Biden administration, and passed in the U.S. House on March 3rd.

Although disgraced Speaker of the Texas House Dennis Bonnen announced he would not seek reelection, he has not yet resigned, and he remains in control of more than $3.8 million. According to the most recent campaign finance reports released January 15, Bonnen has $824,334.01 in his campaign account and $2,996,243.90 in Texas Leads, a PAC established by Bonnen.