Shared from the 5/18/2022 Houston Chronicle eEdition

11th-hour campaign cash eyes GOP fight for clout

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Kim Brent/Staff photographer

House Speaker Dade Phelan is pouring more than $650,000 into the runoffs to boost GOP incumbents fending off hard-line challengers seeking to shift the state House even farther right.

In the March 1 Texas primaries, House Speaker Dade Phelan deployed more than $1 million to help over a dozen GOP lawmakers fend off their intra-party foes. Each challenger was backed by a right-wing group with a singular mission: defeating establishment Republicans and installing hard-line conservatives in their place.

Undeterred by defeat, the political action committee known as Defend Texas Liberty again is spending lavishly in the May 24 runoffs, hoping to unseat three incumbent Republican lawmakers who failed to win outright in March. The group also is backing several candidates running for open statehouse seats, each pitted against a runoff opponent supported by Phelan.

The speaker, a Republican from Beaumont, has responded by pouring more than $650,000 into the runoff contests, funding a mix of advertising and polling for his preferred candidates, according to campaign finance reports made public Tuesday.

With the House all but certain to remain under Republican control in November, the runoffs will help determine the clout of GOP lawmakers and activists who believe the Legislature did not go far enough last year, when it passed a slew of conservative legislation including a six-week abortion ban and sweeping election changes.

Phelan, meanwhile, is aiming to keep an ironclad grip on his role as the House’s presiding officer. He was elected to the post last year with just two opposing votes from the 150-member chamber, yet has faced criticism from a small but vocal number of conservative Republicans who want him to strip Democrats of their committee chairmanships and pursue more far-reaching election laws.

Renée Cross, senior director of the Hobby School of Public Affairs at the University of Houston, said voters who turn out for Republican primaries, especially runoffs, tend to favor more conservative candidates, creating a built-in advantage for the challengers backed by Defend Texas Liberty.

The runoffs are worth watching, Cross said, because they will help determine how the House responds next year when under pressure from the more conservative Texas Senate.

“I think we're going to see the House continue to shift to the right,” Cross said. “Last session, we all said, wow, this was an incredible jump, in terms of ideological policies being enacted. And at the time, a lot of folks didn't necessarily think that it could be more conservative. But I think it can.”

Beyond the House runoffs, here are a few takeaways and notable details gleaned from campaign finance reports that were due Monday:

Big bucks for ‘choice’

By late January, the Texas Federation for Children — a political action committee that advocates for so-called private school choice — had just $12,000 in the bank, according to campaign finance records. The “school choice” movement has stalled in recent years at the Capitol, with all but 29 House lawmakers voting last spring to bar state funds from being used on a voucher program to send kids to private schools.

But school choice advocacy groups have gained renewed momentum since Abbott rolled out a “Parental Bill of Rights” earlier this year, then touted his support for a private school voucher program last week. The push comes as conservatives already are focused intently on classroom-related politics, mostly centered around restricting how teachers can talk about race and gender.

From late March to late April, the latest period covered by public campaign finance records, Texas Federation for Children PAC hauled in more than $270,000, mostly from conservative philanthropist Stacy Hock and Houston developer and megadonor Richard Weekley. It was the group’s most robust fundraising period this cycle, setting up a push for candidates who support private school vouchers in the homestretch of the runoffs.

Notably, Abbott has endorsed two House incumbents — state Reps. Kyle Kacal, R-College Station, and Glenn Rogers, R-Graford — who oppose private school vouchers and are facing runoff opponents who support the policy.

Fundraising disparities

Former congressman Beto O’Rourke easily won the Democratic nomination for governor in March, but most of the party’s remaining statewide ticket will be settled in next week’s runoff elections.

The race to decide Republican Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick’s opponent has come down to a runoff between Mike Collier, an accountant who lost to Patrick by about 5 percentage points in 2018, and state Rep. Michelle Beckley, D-Carrollton.

Collier, who finished 12 percentage points ahead of Beckley on March 1, has a massive fundraising edge over Beckley. He outraised her by a margin of nearly 40-to-1 from Feb. 20 through Saturday, the period covered by the latest round of campaign finance reports. Beckley reported just $5,436.51 cash on hand, compared to Collier’s $115,613.

The Democratic primary runoff for land commissioner has seen an even larger fundraising disparity, with conservationist Jay Kleberg raking in more than $520,000 since mid-February, dwarfing the $1,037.95 haul reported by his runoff opponent, mental health counselor Sandra Grace Martinez.

Even with Kleberg’s financial edge and the endorsement of O’Rourke, however, the race remains highly unpredictable. Kleberg also held an outsized financial advantage in the first round, only to finish six points behind Martinez.

In elections for more obscure positions like land commissioner, Democratic primary voters typically favor female and Hispanic candidates over those who are male or white, Cross said, pointing to similar results in down-ballot Harris County races in March.

“Particularly for the Democratic Party, when voters see a Latina is on the ballot, and we don't have a whole lot of attention on these positions year in and year out, I think a woman with a Hispanic surname has an advantage,” Cross said. jasper.scherer@chron.com

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