Texas Republicans Embroiled In Corruption Scandals
The corrupt ties between Texas politicians and big donors are seemingly never-ending.
Two big stories regarding Republican corruption have emerged this week. The sheer cronyism and malfeasance taking place in Texas are shocking.
The Republican circle-jerk, at taxpayer expense.
While watching the House Committee on State Affairs this week, I heard Representative Geren ask the attorney with the Texas Ethics Commission about a lawsuit, Bruce v. Johnson. You can see the exchange below.
Bruce v. Johnson is a case that you likely haven’t heard of. No other news agencies covered this case, so the information about it is scarce. Here are the details:
Representative Bryan Slaton, along with Robert Bruce and Grayson County Conservatives PAC sued all of the commissioners at the Texas Ethics Commission for allegedly violating their civil rights.
It should be noted that 83% of the donations received by the Grayson County Conservative PAC came from the Defend Texas Liberty PAC.
Robert Bruce is a San Antonio-area millionaire with financial ties to Texas Public Policy Foundation. However, he’s small potatoes among political money in Texas, as he only spent $73,000 on the 2022 election, including $20,000 to the Defend Texas Liberty PAC.
The most significant contributor to the Defend Texas Liberty PAC last election cycle was west-Texas billionaire Tim Dunn, with $7.1 million.
On top of that, Representative Charlie Geren and Dustin Burrows became involved in this case as intervenors, but it’s unknown to what capacity. In a lawsuit, an intervenor is a third party who voluntarily enters into legal proceedings because they have a direct and substantial interest in the case's outcome. Neither the Defend Texas Liberty PAC nor Tim Dunn donated to those two reps last year.
It also should be noted that the Defend Texas Liberty PAC and Tim Dunn were Bryan Slaton’s biggest financial contributors for a combined $200,000.
So, what was the lawsuit about?
Thank this Grayson County Conservative’s Facebook post for the details.
Because of this lawsuit, Texans can now donate money to the speaker race in the House of Rrepresentatives. Why does this matter? Because the speaker’s race is not a general election open for the public to vote on, it’s an internal election only voted on by the other members of the House of Representatives.
This lawsuit opens the doors for allowing speaker-hopefuls to buy the votes of their fellow House members.
Another interesting fact about this case was the attorney who handled it, Tony McDonald. McDonald is also the general council of the Texas Scorecard. As most of you already know, the Texas Scorecard is heavily funded by Tim Dunn.
How is this a Republican circle-jerk?
Republican Texas government official Representative Bryan Slaton sued a Texas government agency, the Texas Ethics Commission. During the lawsuit, the Ethics Commission was defended by the taxpayer-funded Republican Texas Attorney General.
Why?
So that Republican speaker-hopeful Tony Tinderholt could buy the votes of his fellow Republicans against the previous speaker, Republican Dade Phelan.
While it appears that the lawsuit was bankrolled by Tim Dunn, the Texas Ethics Commission, and the Attorney General are paid with taxpayer dollars, so much of it was to our expense.
If you remember, Bryan Slaton led the charge against Dade Phelan as speaker because he didn’t want any Democrats to hold committee chairmanships. The reason Slaton gave for this was how Democrats kept calling him racist.
As shocking as this is, it pales in comparison to what Mayes Middleton has been up to lately.
Senator Mayes Middleton has surrounded himself with several bad actors, all to push school vouchers.
It’s worth pointing out that Mayes Middleton has long had deep ties with Tim Dunn, as they were both original financiers of Empower Texans and the Texas Scorecard.
Billy Townsend, a Floridian and political watchdog, uncovered much of this story as one of the key figures, James Dunn, has been doing significant damage in Florida politics.
This story by Billy Townsend was sent to me yesterday by a friend:
It’s well worth the read. It implicates Mayes Middleton, Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath, Newly Elected SBOE Member Julie Pickren, Houston ISD Trustee Kendall Baker, and Governor Greg Abbott in shady backroom dealings.
The man behind all the shady backroom dealings is James Dunn, who was convicted of defrauding the Department of Education.
Dunn was the treasure for Kendall Baker’s campaign. Morath and Pickren facilitated training by Dunn in Southlake and South Texas. Abbott appointed Baker and Morath to the Southern Regional Education Board. And Mayes Middleton bankrolled it all.
Seriously, you have to read Billy Townsend’s article, he’s been following this story for a while.
There is no shortage of corrupt politicians on this earth, but Texas Republicans are the most corrupt of them all.
"The price of apathy towards public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." - Plato