The latest campaign finance reports reveal that the Texas Democrats who broke quorum collected $491,000 between their July 12 departure and the end of the first special session. Over 25 percent of that money came from out-of-state donors.

The first financial reports of the 2022 Texas Governor’s race show Gov. Abbott with a strong financial lead, but challengers may be able to use time to their advantage.

Lobbying is big business in Austin. Over $667 million was spent by lobbyist clients to influence lawmakers during the 2020 election cycle (January 1, 2019 – December 31, 2020), with the vast majority of that spending occurring while the Texas legislature was convened in 2019. Yet only two percent of all those expenditures have a legislator’s name attached to them. That’s right. In the entire two-year cycle, only $12,944,291 ever made its way onto a detailed report filed with the Texas Ethics Commission.