More than $225,000,000.00. That’s the amount of money raised by Texas candidates and PACs in the last election cycle alone, January 1, 2015 – August 9, 2016. Yes, nearly a quarter of a billion dollars flowed through political hands in Texas—and that doesn’t count the money given to candidates in national races or presidential campaigns. Campaign finance laws are supposed to make this money transparent to us, the citizens, but too often only political insiders understand the system.

That 225 million dollars represents nearly 1,800,000 individual contributions to candidates.  With that many transactions, it’s easy for citizens to feel overwhelmed and for politicians to hide what’s going on.

Why are people willing to give that much money? What exactly is at stake? Where is the money coming from? Where is it going? What did my representative do with my contribution?

For too long it’s been difficult to answer these questions.

That’s why we’ve built Transparency Texas. Now you can easily follow the money in Texas politics. Now can you know which Texas political candidates are really on your side.

Someone wise once said, “where a man’s treasure is, there is his heart.” If you can clearly see where Texas political candidates get their money, and if you can clearly see what they do with it, then you can also clearly see where their hearts are—and whether or not they’re really on your side. Through Transparency Texas, you can actually do this. It’s easy—the information is here and readily accessible.

Take a moment to try out the search function. You can find candidates, political action committees (PACs), and donors and learn exactly what money came in and where it went. We’ll be analyzing the data in a fresh, easy-to-understand, jargon-free way.

Enjoy getting a clear picture of where Texas political candidates get their financial support and how they spend it. You will finally get true insight into who they really are and which of them you can wholeheartedly support.

Secrecy is gone. Welcome to Transparency Texas!

Transparency Texas’ methodology to prevent double counting of donations has been used in this article.