Harlan Crow, Ross Perot, JR., and the Texas House Speaker Hold Big Money Fundraiser for Texas State Rep
Millionaires, Billionaires, and Texas Republicans Soak Angie Chen Button in Dirty Campaign Cash
While working class Texans struggle to make ends meet, some of the wealthiest and most powerful Texans on the planet will gather in October to bundle cash for one of their own.
Patrick Svitek of Texas Tribune reports that Dade Phelan, Harlan Crowe, Ross Perot, Jr., and scores of other state reps and big money partisans will gather in a room on October 6th in Dallas to raise enormous funds for Angie Chen Button. Button, a two-term rep who squeaked by her first election in 2020 by less than 300 votes, has been a rubber stamp for the Republican agenda throughout her tenure, supporting the Death Star bill, a state border militia, and sponsoring legislation to prohibit cities from passing heat-related ordinances even as Houston breaks its streak of days over 100 degrees in the summer following the most recent legislative session.
Button’s fealty to the party appears to have paid off… literally. The October fundraiser’s guest list of wealthy and powerful elites is a who’s who of people who use filthy money and influence to infiltrate and control politics:
Harlan Crow, perhaps the most well-known of the bunch, was exposed earlier this year for showering Justice Clarence Thomas in luxury presents for more than two decades. Crow, who inherited his wealth from a father who was once the largest landlord in the US, apparently gave Thomas a $19,000 bible that used to belong to Frederick Douglass; gave Yale Law a $105,000 donation in Thomas’ name; and paid for long luxury vacations for Thomas, including trips on Crow’s super yacht, private jet travel, and stays at private resorts. He even leveraged the yacht trips to decrease his own tax bill. Crow also paid Thomas for land that belonged to the Justice’s mother at a rate more than triple what was paid just the previous year. He paid a six-figure private school tuition for Clarence’s grandnephew, who Thomas raised like a son. These gifts were not disclosed, violating campaign finance law.
Harlan Crow (Photo via the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum; nod at Open Secrets) Crow’s think tank has successfully lobbied the Supreme Court to hear a case that could allow billionaires to squiggle out of paying taxes.
Crow regularly doles out thousands of dollars to right wing electeds and PACs. He once funded a dark money group headed up by Ginni Thomas as it lobbied on Citizens United. He is a $130K funder and big money bundler for No Labels, evidence in a growing body demonstrating the corporate-friendly oligarchical nature of the No Labels movement. No Labels called Donald Trump a “problem solver” in early 2016, a full year after Trump had labeled a heavy majority of Mexicans crossing the border as “rapists and murderers.” A six-figure Trump sponsor recently joined No Labels as an advisor.Ross Perot, Jr., the son of the former presidential candidate who has turned his inheritance into a real estate empire, is a super donor to a wide variety of conservative PACS, committees, and politicians. He gave $25,000 to Dade Phelan, $20,000 to Sid Miller, $75,000 to Associated Republicans of Texas, and $250,000 to Greg Abbott… all in the last few months of 2022. And that’s just a small sample of the max contributions given our by Perot over decades.
That money is chump change to Perot, who is worth well more than $3 billion.
Oil baron Albert Huddleston of Aethon Energy made $2,500 contributions to eight different politicians in Q4 of 2022: Angela Paxton, Dewayne Burns, Brian Harrison, Brian Birdwell, Phil King, Andrew Murr, William Metcalf, and Dustin Burrows. In the past, he has made massive, continuous donations to Donald Trump.
Aethon Energy violated the law in 2020 by dumping wastewater into Wyoming waters, going so far as to ask Wyoming for permission to dump even more contaminants later on. The state of Wyoming declined to allow any more degradation to its environment.Doug Deason, son of far right super donor Darwin Deason, has written large checks to Mehmet Oz, gerrymandering specialist Phil King, Jeff Leach, Wayne Christian, Glenn Hegar, Joan Huffman, Chip Roy, Briscoe Cain, Ryan Zinke, Ken Paxton, Lauren Boebert, and other extremist members of the GOP. He and his father raised more than $1 million for Trump.
In an NPR interview, Deason said:
KLEINER: Doug Deason sees it as expecting members of Congress to do what they've said they're going to do and the promises that they've made on the campaign trail and the promises that they've made to him in private conversations when he's giving them campaign contributions. I asked him about this.
Do you think that contributing money to these lawmakers gets you access that other people don't have?
DEASON: Of course.
KLEINER: Do you think that's fair?
DEASON: You know, I've never really thought about if that's fair or not.
Deason went on to say he had several dozen senators’ phone numbers in his phone, all while claiming that he didn’t want anything because he was no longer in business…
But we know what his top priority is: taxes.
Because that’s how he keeps his money… which is all the Deasons really want.
Erle Nye is the former CEO of Oncor Electric Delivery Company, the largest transmission and distribution electric utility in the state of Texas and the 5th largest utility company in the US. Oncor was sued successfully for a 2015 incident that left James Stacey Taylor of Graham, Texas a quadriplegic after the company told Mr. Taylor it was his responsibility to trim or remove trees near one of their high voltage power lines. Taylor was shocked, burned, and paralyzed in the accident.
More recently, Oncor was sued for wrongful death by several families following the infamous Texas Winter Freeze. Oncor’s failure to properly manage rolling outages led to one man dying of frostbite in his own home, and a woman dying because she couldn’t breathe based on a lack of power to her oxygen machine.
Nye has made massive donations to GOP electeds, including far more than $100K to Greg Abbott over time, $10,000 to Charles Schwertner, $5,000 to Darby Drew, $5,000 to Drew Patterson, $7,500 to Angela Paxton, $10,000 to Craig Goldman, $2,900 to Herschel Walker, $10,000 to Joan Huffman, and much more money to many more elected employees. His full political donation history is staggering.Robert Rowling is the head of TRT Holdings, which owns Omni Hotels and Gold’s Gym. Rowling’s donation history includes $5,000 each to Drew Springer and Brandon Creighton, $7,600 to Brian Kemp, multiple max donations to Jaime Herrera Beutler, multiple quarter-million dollar donations to Greg Abbott and both the Senate Leadership Fund and the Congressional Leadership Fund, $25,000 to Texas Federation of Children (Betsy DeVos’ Texas area outfit)… and so many more. He drops thousands of dollars almost every week on causes and electeds that privatize schools, destroy the Earth, and violate civil rights.
TRT Holdings lost a pay discrimination case earlier this year, forcing them to compensate a woman who was continuously paid less than her male counterparts over fifteen years to the tune of $25.1 million. Rowling also took more than $83 million in Paycheck Protection Act loans.
Rowling lost his seat on the board of UT Regents because state senators questioned his “judgment and his intelligence.” The year after, four San Francisco area Gold’s Gyms cut ties with the franchise because of Rowling’s donations to American Crossroads, a group calling for anti-gay policies.George Seay is Chairman of Annandale Capital.
Per a Reuters article on Rubio bundlers:
”Annandale Capital founder George Seay, who is hosting a Rubio fundraiser with the moneyed Dallas elite at his 7,000-square-foot, seven-bath home on Tuesday, said: ‘Marco has had zero trouble raising money.’”
Seay has made multiple $25,000 to Rubio’s super PAC. He also donated significant money to Kelly Ayotte.
Gretchen Seay has made max contributions to Marco Rubio, John Thune, Pat Toomey, Beth Van Duyne, John Cornyn, and many more. She also gives $5,000 and $10,000 donations to the Texas Republican Party and a variety of Republican committees.Richard Collins is CEO of IStation, an education technology company chairman gives out four-figure donations to Republicans left and right. More egregious than that, he gave Dan Patrick $10,000 last election, and has doled out a lot more than that to candidates who would gladly gut public education.
IStation was awarded an $8.3 million contract in a North Carolina school district under shady circumstance and heavy criticism from educators.Gerald Ford is Chairman of Diamond A. Ford. He has written checks in the past for $25,000 to both Dan Patrick and Greg Abbott. He gives to both parties, but much more heavily to Republicans.
Arun Agarawal is the CEO of Nexxt, an HR technology company. In November and December of 2022, Agarwal gave nearly $10,000 to Greg Abbott, $5,000 to Sid Miller, and $5,000 to Ken Paxton.
Ashok Kumar Mago is a max donor to Greg Abbott and John Cornyn, and a major player in Dallas commerce, particularly when it comes to international trade with India.
Briscoe Cain, Tom Oliverson, Dustin Burrows, and Jeff Leach, are just four of the most conservative members of the Texas House.
The truth is that every person on the list is complicit in the destruction of lives in Texas.
That tells you everything you need to know about Angie Chen Button.
Fortunately, there’s something you can do about it. Button’s seat is one of the most flippable in the state of Texas. The GAP Network is developing District Action Councils, which are capable of flipping enough seats to take the gavel away from Republicans in the Texas House.
The billionaires have funds, but we have what it takes to defeat them and their flunkies.
Volunteer or donate to District Action Tables today to boot reps like Chen out of office.
Thanks for a very well researched and informative article.