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October 14, 2006
Are you For the People, or Against the Pedophiles?
Texans for Public Justice, the people who brought you "The Big Buy: Tom DeLay's Stolen Congress", has an alarming report on the money distributed in the Texas Attorney General's race:
Texas voters definitely have a choice in this November’s attorney general race—although few of them may be aware of it. Nonetheless they can expect to hear soon from the incumbent Republican. Attorney General Greg Abbott has raised almost $9 million since his 2002 election. Although he still retained $7 million in his war chest at the end of June, Abbott pledged to spend heavily to ensure that voters know about his accomplishments. At the top of his list, he says, is busting Internet pedophiles.
Meanwhile voters should not expect to hear from Democratic challenger David Van Os—unless they mosey down to their local court house on the appointed day. A longtime labor lawyer, Van Os is running a populist campaign—and has the bank account to prove it. Since his 2004 race for the Texas Supreme Court, Van Os has raised $104,081, spending all but $3,242 of it by the end of June. Unable to buy much advertising, Van Os is well on his way to fulfilling his pledge to hold political rallies at each of Texas’ 254 county courthouses. Here Van Os rails more often against the kinds of rapacious corporate interests that have stocked his opponent’s war chest than the perverts who populate the World Wide Web.
(Libertarian Jon Roland, who has not reported raising or spending any money, says his priority will be to squash the corruption of public offices.)
Apart from message and the sheer size of their war chests, a key difference between the two major-party candidates is in the size of the contribution checks that they received. Checks of $5,000 or more accounted for 75 percent of all the money that Abbott raised and just 19 percent of Van Os’ total funding. In contrast, checks for less than $1,000 accounted for 57 percent of Van Os’ money and 5 percent of the incumbent’s cash.
Researchers identified the interests behind more than $8 million of Abbott’s campaign money, finding that business interests accounted for more than 99 percent of his total. Abbott, an ex-Texas Supreme Court justice and former corporate lawyer, received the most money ($1.4 million) from the Lawyers and Lobbyists sector (led by Vinson & Elkins). He also received more than $1 million from the Miscellaneous Business sector (led by Houston beer magnate John Nau). Abbott’s top overall donor was, of course, Houston home-builder Bob Perry, who gave the attorney general a remarkable $470,265. The next-largest donors were Kenny Troutt, who made a fortune from his Excel phone company, and energy and water investor T. Boone Pickens.
Read the entire entry, including the graphs of he contributions, come to the Courthouse Whistlestop next Wednesday, and cast a vote for the people.
And not the powerful.
Posted by Perry Dorrell at October 14, 2006 10:26 AM | Permalink
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