So now that we've run through the big Political Action Committee's, and where they stand on the liberal conservative spectrum, (see Part 1 of this blog), lets take a look at each representative in Senate District One and each persons donations since Jan 1, 2016, the last election cycle.
For purposes of being consistent, I only counted contributions totaling $500 or more during the time period. I did not include Byron Cook since he is no longer running for re-election.
HD 1 Representative Gary VanDeaver:
Gary received $189,000 in total PAC money and $81,250 from individuals. The number of PAC's totaled 71 and individuals totaled 33. The largest contributor to his campaign was the Texas House Leadership Fund, run by ex-speaker Joe Straus. Totaling $57,500, this was the largest contribution to any representative in SD 1. The next largest donation to Rep. VanDeaver was from Associated Republicans of Texas at $40,700. This group was detailed in the previous blog. These two donations amount to just under 52% of the total PAC money given to Gary in this period. The top 5 PAC donors to his campaign were 1. Texas House Leadership Fund-$57,500 2. Associated Republicans of Texas-$40,700 3. Texas State Teachers Association-$13,000 4. Texans For Lawsuit Reform-$6,000 Tied for 5th at $5,000 a piece were Association of Texas Professional Educators, TREPAC, and Texas Farm Bureau.
Gary's largest individual donor was Charles Butt at $12,500. Mr Butt is the chairman and CEO of HEB grocery stores out of San Antonio. One of the wealthiest individuals in Texas, Mr. Butt also gave $100,000 to the Texas House Leadership Fund, and funded challengers to conservative lawmakers Matt Rinaldi and Jonathan Stickland. In the 2016 cycle, Mr Butt donated $1.84 Million to PAC's as well as moderate to liberal candidates. Mr. VanDeaver's top 5 individual donors were 1. Charles Butt-$12,500 2. Kyle Davis-$11,500 3. Chad Patterson-$10,000 4. Charles Patterson-$10,000 5. Nelson Roach-$10,000. These 5 make up 66% of his individual donors.
HD 5 Representative Cole Hefner
Cole had 59 PAC's give him $151,000 with Empower Texans being the largest donor at $41,400. Empower Texans was started by Tim Dunn, CEO of oil driller CrownQuest in Midland, Texas. They tend to concentrate their support and donations to legislators that lean to the conservative side of the scale. The top 5 PAC's on Cole's list were 1. Empower Texans-$41,400 2. Texas Home School Coalition-$22,250 3. Texans for Lawsuit Reform-$10,000 4. Texas Right to Life-$10,000 5. Young Conservatives of Texas-$8,833. These 5 donors make up 61% of his PAC money.
The largest individual donor for Cole, at $17,000, was the late Lonnie "Bo' Pilgrim of Pilgrim's Pride chicken in Pittsburg, Texas. The next 4 were Bill Priefert-$12,000, Mayes Middleton-$7500, Stacy Hock-$7,500, and Monty Bennett-$7,000. Cole's individual donors totaled 75 persons and $140,000. Put another way, his PAC/Individual donor $$$$ ratio is approximately 1:1
HD 6 Representative Matt Schaefer
Matt received the least amount of money of any SD 1 legislator both in PAC money and from individual donors. The surprising statistic though, is that he had fewer PAC donors than he did from individuals. Money from PAC sources totaled only $19,000 from 15 sources. The largest from Texas Right to Life at $5,000. His individual donations came in at $58,000 from 40 people. Matt received 3x the amount of donations from 3x the number of individuals over PAC's. His largest donor came from Thomas Grahm, a physician out of Tyler, at $7,500. In order, they were Thomas Grahm-$7,500, Texas Right to Life-$5,000, Dick Saulsbury-$5,000, Paul Ditwiller-$5,000 and Dan Wilks-$3,750.
HD 7 Representative Jay Dean
First year legislator Jay Dean had no problems picking up donations from both PAC's and individuals, mostly business owners in the Gregg County area. His time spent as mayor of Longview, surely helped him in his fundraising efforts. Both his PAC donations and private donations came in at $151,000 respectively, totaling just north of $300,000 in all. His largest donation came from Texans for Lawsuit Reform, $30,500. Also on the list in his top 5 of PAC money is the Texas Medical Association, $5,750. Since TLR and TMA work very closely together in supporting moderate Republicans, this is not surprising. The other three top PAC's were TREPAC-$15,000, Associated Republicans of Texas-$10,000, and Blackridge, an Austin lobbyist firm at $8,500.
Jay's biggest individual donor was John Martin, owner of R&K Distributors in Longview. He gave Jay a total of $18,500 over this time period. R&K is the local distributor of Anheuser-Busch products. Some interesting connections here are that Wholesale Beers Distributors PAC is also on Jay's donor list of which Mr. Martin also contributed to the tune of $10,000. It doesn't stop there, Associated Republicans of Texas was Jay's 3rd largest PAC contributor and records show that John Nau, owner of the largest Anheuser-Busch distributor in Texas gave ART its biggest donation of $217,000. One might conclude that Jay has the Beer industry's support. The other top individual donors were Ruben Martin of Kilgore-$18,000, LaFama Foods-$10,000, Ron Hutchinson-$10,000, and Charles Butt-$8,500.
HD 9 Representative Chris Paddie
The biggest winner in PAC donations from Texas House reps in SD 1 goes to Chris Paddie. Totaling $210,000 from 122 PAC's and Austin lobby's, Chris outpaced VanDeaver by 11%, Hefner by 35% and Dean by 39%. While Dean and Hefner had almost a 1:1 ratio of the different donors, Chris had almost a 4:1 ratio. His individual donations totaled only $75,000 from 33 people. Of that $75,000, one person, Terry Bailey, of Center, Tx gave $25,000. The next 9 largest donors gave a combined $27,500 and the bottom 23 made up the rest. Within the top 10, only half were from inside his district. With so much support and money coming from outside his district, 91% of all donations, its a wonder he has any time for interest within his district.
The largest PAC money came from TREPAC-$20,000, ($77,000 since 2011). The other top PAC donors were Texans for Lawsuit Reform-$10,500, Atmos Energy-$4,000, KOCHPAC-$4,000, and Texas Auto Dealers-$4,000. KOCHPAC also gave Joe Straus $10,000 during the cycle. They are in the Oil & Gas industry.
HD 11 Representative Travis Clardy
Travis received $177,000 in total from all PAC's and individuals. PAC's gave him $116,500 with the largest 5 coming from TREPAC-$20,000, Friends of the University-$5,000, Allen-Boone lobby firm-$3,500, Focused Advocacy-$3,500, and TLR-$3,500. His largest individual donors came from Lufkin brothers, Max and Ronald Haney-$10,000 each. They are nursing home directors. This might explain his vote for HB 2766, dubbed the "Granny Tax", which charges the most vulnerable, our elderly, a tax when using a nursing care facility. The tax collected would then be funneled back to the nursing home provider. His total PAC donors equaled 67, individuals-22, a 3:1 ratio.
SD 1 Senator Bryan Hughes
Total political contributions from all sources equaled $1.45 Million since Jan 2016. This will require a separate blog. As of this writing, I'm only half way through analyzing his reports.
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