A pair of lawsuits filed by allies of West Texas megadonor Tim Dunn shut down laws that banned outside spending in the House leadership race, allowing for more political mudslinging and raising questions about ethics rules.
Critics of Texas House leadership spent big in this year’s speaker’s race. They fought years for that chance.State Rep. Dustin Burrows , R-Lubbock, addresses the House after being sworn in as House speaker on the first day of the 2025 legislative session at the Capitol in Austin on Jan. 14.’ East Texas district were flooded with text messages the week before the legislative session kicked off.
The lawsuits ushered in an open season on spending for attack ads. House members for months saw their districts bombarded with social media and text message campaigns, targeting them over their speaker allegiances. Angry voters sent a largely new crop of lawmakers to Austin in 1973 with demands to restore public trust. Dubbed “The Reform Session,” the Legislature passed a sweeping set of ethics rules, including one bill barring legislators from using campaign money “to aid or defeat a speaker candidate,” and prohibiting individuals from spending more than $100 on correspondence that might influence the speaker’s election. The punishment was up to a year in jail, a $4,000 fine or both.
“We were shocked that this would be in the law,” Shackelford said. “The speaker has a lot of power over pretty much every issue and to allow the general public to speak into that, I think, is important.” Empower Texans, a conservative lobbying group funded largely by Dunn, started testing the waters, publicly advocating for their preferred speaker candidate. In 2011, they, who was at that point a relatively unknown state representative from McKinney, in his campaign to unseat Straus as speaker. Paxton vowed to choose more conservative lawmakers to chair influential House committees.
Bonnen served one term as speaker, brought down by the leader of Empower Texans who released a secret recording where Bonnen and Burrows offered media credentials to the organization in exchange for his help to “pop” some House Republicans in the next primary.Only two representatives voted against Phelan for speaker, including former Rep. Bryan Slaton, R-Royce City, a freshman at the time.
“If existing law is struck down, Intervenors will be subjected to the effects of limitless spending of political contributions to PACs and legislators on efforts to influence the selection of the Speaker of the House,” wrote Geren and Burrows. “This raises the prospect of influence-buying and corruption tainting the selection of the Speaker.”
"There was no way it was going to stand constitutional muster," he said."It would've been pointless to have a trial because they knew they were going to lose, because it was a clear First Amendment violation."The state GOP’s decision to campaign against one of its own for House speaker this round was unusual.
The full scale of spending around the race is still unclear due to a patchwork of filing deadlines and a lack of specificity about what types of spending individuals or groups are required to disclose around this particular race. That murkiness is at the heart of the lawsuit that Rep. Pat Curry filed against the Courageous Conservative PAC days after the speaker's race. The freshman from Waco said the PAC, which is based in Virginia and chaired by Texas conservative Chris Ekstrom, sent a text message to his constituents claiming he had agreed to vote for Burrows for speaker, labeling him a “turncoat,” and publishing his phone number.
Politics Texas House Of Representatives Texas Legislature Speaker Of The Texas House Dustin Burrows Dade Phelan David Cook Tim Dunn
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