GOP Reps Who Voted to Impeach AG Raised
$700,000 from Defend Texas Liberty Sources
Capitol Inside
October 16, 2023
Texas House Republicans who voted to impeach Attorney General Ken Paxton have hundreds of thousands of dollars socked away in campaign accounts as support they received from the same conservative interests behind the Defend Texas Liberty PAC.
At least 18 of 60 Republicans who backed the AG's impeachment would have to give away $700,000 or more if they plan to take a stand against terrorism in Israel and racism in the GOP by heeding GOP Speaker Dade Phelan's call to rid campaigns of funds that came from DTL or sources closely connected to the group.
Three of the same House Republicans have identified a combined total of $8,500 that they'd deemed to be tainted and volunteered to give away as an expression of their anger, outrage and sadness about the poisoning of the Republican Party with Nazis, racists and peddlers of hate
But they're off to a slow start at the end of the first week based on the results of the DTF boycott that Phelan and State Rep. Jared Patterson of Frisco have been posting on X. Patterson - one of the House leadership team's rising stars - has been leading the charge for the newfound war against hate that Phelan launched last Sunday in a monumental bid to shift the spotlight away from the failed impeachment effort.
"There is no room in the Republican Party for antisemitism, Holocaust deniers, or fans of Adolf Hitler," Patterson wrote on his X page on Sunday night.
House GOP leaders embraced a Sam Houston quote from the Texas Revolution as the mantra for the historic Paxton impeachment bid. But Phelan used a famous line from Colonel William B. Travis in the John Wayne film to emphasize the need for bravery and the will to do right in an interview on Sunday with the NBC affiliate in Dallas.
"You have a choice right now, just like with the impeachment: choose integrity, political courage, and we're going to turn our back to corruption and do the right thing," the speaker said. "And now there's another line in the sand."
Patterson considered banning the Pulitzer Prize-winning Texas classic Lonesome Dove during the regular session as the author of a landmark bill that Governor Greg Abbott proposed after Republicans discovered a pornography crisis in the public schools here two years ago. But Patterson said he decided to read the Larry McMurtry novel first and scratched it as a potential target for the school porn measure in House Bill 900.
But Patterson could find a more imposing challenge with the push to get fellow House Republicans to donate campaign funds to other causes at a time when they're in a state of historic disarray and fear with massive targets on their backs as a consequence of pro-impeachment votes. Patterson sought to be a role model last week when he announced that he'd contributed $2,500 to the Friends of the Israel Defense Forces as money that he'd received from former GOP colleague and DTL operative Jonathan Stickland six years ago.
Patterson said he had to give the Stickland money away before he could rest again. Patterson urged fellow House Republicans to follow his lead and do their parts to protect Israel from terrorists. "You, too, can help Israel defend itself and go on the offensive by donating" to FIDF.
Patterson could have some sleepless nights in the future - however - if he decides to keep an estimated $120,000 or more that he's raised in years past from groups and individuals like Stickland who are integral parts of the Defend Texas Liberty network. Patterson ranks third behind State Reps. Matt Shaheen of Plano and Briscoe Cain of Deer Park on the list of Republicans who voted to give Paxton the boot in terms of the amount of campaign cash they would have to give away to meet the Phelan challenge.
An examination of Texas Ethics Commission records shows that Shaheen and Cain raised in the vicinity of $145,000 and $135,000 respectively from the DTL network. Republican State Reps. Jeff Leach of Allen and Cole Hefner of Mount Pleasant both scored contributions in the $60,000 range or more from the same conservative forces who House GOP leaders have vilified as Nazis and racists and tried to link to Hamas terrorists in the foreign nation's that 7,000 miles from the Texas Capitol City.
GOP State Reps. Terry Wilson of Georgetown, Dustin Burrows of Lubbock and Stephanie Klick of Fort Worth accepted between $30,000 and $40,000 apiece from the same conservatives behind Defend Texas Liberty. Ten other Republicans have raked in smaller sums of cash from individuals and groups that have depend on DTL donors as a major sources of funding.
The anti-Paxton Republicans who would have the most to give away - Patterson, Shaheen, Cain, Leach, Hefner, Burrows, Wilson and Klick - were all elected initially with strong support on the right from conservatives who are tied directly to Defend Texas Liberty. Ten other Republicans have raked in smaller sums of cash from individuals and groups that have depend on DTL donors as a major source of funding.
House Republicans who voted for Paxton's impeachment had substantial support from DTL's top two donors - Tim Dunn and Farris Wilks - and an assortment of groups that they've funded like Texas Right to Life, Texans for Vaccine Choice and the Conservative Republicans of Texas and and political committees that were dissolved including Empower Texans and Texans for Fiscal Responsibility. The DTL universe includes individual contributors like Darlene Pendery and Ken Fisher and a pair of former House Republicans in Matt Rinaldi, Bryan Slaton and Stickland.
Rinaldi is one of Phelan's most vociferous critics as the chairman of the Texas GOP. Luke Macias has been the chief outside consultant for the conservatives behind DTL.
more to come ...
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