Posts Tagged ‘Bennett Ratliff’

Rich Liberal Trial Lawyer Steve Mostyn is the Bank Behind Texas Municipal Police Association PAC

Tuesday, September 23rd, 2014

It’s always interesting to find out where the money for innocuous sounding political committees is really coming from. Today the Dallas Morning news revealed that rich liberal trial lawyer Steve Mostyn provides the majority of money behind the Texas Municipal Police Association PAC.

Houston trial lawyer and political mega donor Steve Mostyn, who usually helps Democratic candidates, bankrolled a police group that was mostly playing in GOP primaries last spring because he’s from Tyler and wanted to knock off tea party-backed freshman Republican Rep. Matt Schaefer, R-Tyler, a spokesman said Monday.

Snip.

Among the PAC’s targets were attorney general candidate Ken Paxton of McKinney, whom the law enforcement group’s president chided in this open letter for failing to register as an investment adviser. The omission drew Paxton, a freshman state senator, a fine from the Texas State Securities Board. Three months earlier, the police PAC endorsed Rep. Dan Branch, R-Dallas, Paxton’s chief rival for attorney general. In a May 27 runoff, Paxton crushed Branch.

The association says it has more than 20,000 members who are law enforcement officers and first responders. Late last year, its PAC moved early to back Republican Speaker Joe Straus for re-election to his House seat in San Antonio. In this year’s GOP House primaries, the PAC generally supported Straus allies. For instance, it helped Rep. Jim Keffer, R-Eastland, who won; and Rep. Bennett Ratliff, R-Coppell, who narrowly lost.

This confirms, yet again, another reason why it’s high time Straus was ousted from the Speaker’s chair.

Of the $72,000 the municipal police association PAC has raised this year, 69 percent came from the Mostyn Law Firm, according to a Dallas Morning News review of campaign-finance reports to the Texas Ethics Commission. Of the $81,500 the PAC has spent on candidates in 2014, just over $52,000 — or 64 percent — went to buy radio ads, mailers and brochures for Schaefer’s GOP challenger, Tyler businessman Skip Ogle, the newspaper found.

How did that work out?

The effort failed as Schaefer, one of the House’s most conservative members, fended off Ogle in the initial March 4 balloting, 61 percent to 39 percent.

In other words, it worked out pretty much the same way as just about all of Steve Mostyn’s political donations work out: Abject failure.

So whatever happened to Mostyn’s plans to head up to New York City?

(Hat tip: Michael Quinn Sullivan’s Twitter feed.)

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Reports of the Tea Party’s Death Have Been Greatly Exaggerated

Tuesday, March 11th, 2014

There have been a lot of wishful thinking thumbsucker pieces from liberal media outlets proclaiming that the Tea Party is done, finished, a spent force. (Here’s an example.)

And indeed, those looking only at some top-line races in Texas (like Katrina Pierson’s failed attempt to take down Pete Sessions) might find tend to agree.

However, a look at all the races (including many down-ballot) shows that the Tea Party is alive and well.

Start at Lt. Governor. Dan Patrick says he followed the Ted Cruz blueprint and leaned heavily on the Tea Party. “If you have a candidate who will work and at least enough resources to fund a statewide race then and you have the credentials, the tea party will bring you to victory.”

Texans for Fiscal Responsibility’s Michael Quinn Sullivan sees conservative victories up and down the ballot:

  • The most liberal Republican in the Texas Senate lost.
  • Conservative ranks in the Senate are swelling.
  • Every House conservative won re-election (with re-enforcements coming from the open-seat races).
  • House incumbents affiliated with Speaker Joe Straus lost big.
  • Statewide races saw the TFR-backed candidates earning commanding leads going into run-offs.

    • Sullivan goes on to cite Don Huffines defeating John Carona, Brooks Landgraf defeating Austin Keith, and the defeats of Straus allies Bennett Ratliff, Ralph Sheffield, Linda Harper-Brown, Diane Patrick and Lance Gooden.

    This AP piece touts Tea Party success in Texas, but is lamentably short on details.

    Even liberal fossil Paul Burka says that “If there was a clear winner in last night’s election, it was the tea party,” noting the defeats of Joe Straus allies Harper-Brown and Ratliff.

    So too at the national level. The enthusiastic response to Sarah Palin’s speech and other Tea Party favorites shows that the movement is far from dead.

    Which is not to say huge obstacles don’t remain. The Tea Party still hasn’t built up their financial networks enough to reliably take on big-money incumbents, and even in Texas, previous Tea Party gains were insufficient to wrest the Speakership from Straus (who just spent $2,578,942.72 to retain a job that pays $7,200 a year). But the Tea Party movement is still very much alive and kicking, much to the chagrin of RINOS, democrats and the media…

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