A FrontBurnervian found something interesting while trolling through the Texas Tribune data base of largest Texas PAC holdings. July 15 reports were filed by 2,694 PACs and campaigns. Of these, 274 had at least $100,000 cash on hand. AG Greg Abbott leads with $11 million. He was anticipating that Kay Bailey would resign, setting off a game of musical chairs that would put him in a race for Lt. Governor. Scrolling all the way down, we see other candidates and potential candidates as we get to #17, State Rep. Dan Branch, who was positioning himself in the musical-chair game to run for Abbott’s job.
Then we hit #18. Former State Rep. Steve Wolens, husband of former mayor Laura Miller, retired from the Legislature in 2005. But five years later, he is still sitting on $1,182, 000 in contributions. That’s a lot of money sitting around doing nothing. Now let’s assume that money came in big chunks, which is allowed for state races but not for federal ones. That means it can only be spent in a state race. And who might be interested in a state-wide race, say, in 2012* when Democrats will hold more of a demographic edge in Texas than they do today? IJS.
* Make that 2014. A FrontBurnervian points out there are no state-wide non-federal races in 2012.
