First, from the inbox:
Houston Unites has raised nearly $3 million in support of Proposition 1 from late August through last Saturday, according to the campaign’s finance report submitted to the city today. Almost 75 percent of all donors were from Houston.
“Compared to the handful of wealthy opponents funding the rollback of needed protections for African-Americans, Latinos, women and veterans, we have put together a massive, diverse grassroots coalition backing Houston’s Equal Rights Ordinance,” said Richard Carlbom, campaign manager of Houston Unites. “We anticipate this to be the closest of races, so these final days are critical for HERO supporters to keep investing in the campaign.”
Highlights of the finance report include:
- More than 85 percent of the total donors to Houston Unites were from Texas.
- More than 1,100 of the 1,500 total donors were from Houston.
- Total raised was $2,971,491.
- More than $100,000 was raised online from more than 1,000 donors.
Here’s their report. Here also are the reports for the Human Rights Campaign for HERO PAC, the Business Coalition for Prop 1 PAC, and the anti-HERO Campaign for Houston PAC. In case you’re wondering, the name Bob McNair does not appear anywhere in that report. I assume this is because he had merely pledged to give $10K before having his mind changed, so with no money actually changing hands there’s nothing to report. Those of you who are more in tune with the legal requirements, please correct me if I’m wrong on that. There’s also the No On Prop 1 PAC, but they had not reported as of yesterday, so the antis do have more than this, we just don’t have all the details yet.
I did not scan through the Houston Unites report last night – I may do so later, and we have their summary, so we’ll go with that for now. The Business Coalition has four donors – cash donations from Bret Scholtes ($500) and Haynes & Boone LLP ($5,000), and pledges from the Greater Houston Partnership ($71,760) and United Airlines ($10,000). They spent all their money on print ads – $77,500 in the Chronicle, $9,760 in the Houston Business Journal – which may sound weird until you remember that the average age of a Houston voter in this election is expected to be about 69. Newspaper print ads seems like a reasonable way to reach that demographic.
As for the Campaign for Houston, they listed 45 contributions, for a total of $62,495 raised. Forty-one came from individual donors, 21 of whom were non-Houston residents (one Houston person gave twice), with two familiar names: Andrew (son of Phyllis) Schlafly, and former HCC Trustee Yolanda Flores (no middle name given, but the ZIP code points to her). One donor listed in this group rather than the “corporations or labor unions” line item on the subtotals cover sheet page 3, was TriStar Freight, which gave $2,500. Don’t ask me why they did that, I couldn’t tell you. What I can tell you is the names of the three corporate donors:
Contributor Name Amount
===================================
Trinity Equity Partners LLP 50,000
Texas Outhouse Inc 5,000
The Education Valet Inc 250
I shit you not (sorry not sorry) about that middle one. They list $88,195 in expenses, of which a bit less than $45K is for media buys. They’re running that disgusting bathroom ad during the evening news, or at least they did last night on KPRC at 6. I have no idea how many of those spots that kind of money can buy. This Chron story documents the ad wars; I can confirm that the pro-HERO folks have mail going out as well, one of which landed in my box yesterday. Campaign for Houston also lists a $50K outstanding loan, which isn’t detailed on this form but is presumably the same Hotze loan from their 30 day report.
Other 8 day reports are coming in as well – you can find them here and by searching here. I’ll do my best to update the Election 2015 page as we go this week.
Jared Woodfill has sent out repeated emails claiming that the funds for HERO are primarily from out of town, and neglecting to mention just how few individual donors the anti campaign has.
The donors hiding behind corporate names are probably these:
Wil Vanloh, of Quantum Energy Partners and JNV Aviation is the principal of Trinity Equity Partners, LP, which offices at 1401 McKinney, Suite 2700 according to public records. He is an ally of Hotze, has donated to Hotze’s Conservatives of Texas, and gave $100,000 to Rick Perry.
Paul Carl is the founder of Texas Outhouse Inc, which operates on Kiam Street in the Cottage Grove neighborhood, and has made small donations to a few Republican candidates. Other associated businesses at that address include Gainsborough Waste Corporation.
Ellis and Michelle Bonton are the principals of The Education Valet, Inc, according to public records, and operate as the Crayon Club on Austin St. downtown, and appears to be affiliated with The Rhodes School.
I could only find that the president of TriStar Freight was listed as Kathleen Nance.
Like the other political junkies, I wish I had more time to cull through all the finance reports. I did skim a couple, and noticed that the major and just about the only donors to disgraced Kendall Baker in his district contest, and Evelyn Thompson in at large 4 were Pastor Riggle and Al Hartman and family.
Probate Court Judge Loyd Wright is listed as donating to the anti-HERO campaign.
The City is listing the reports for a number of candidates under the listing for Campaign for Houston, in addition to listing them under the candidates’ reports, which is confusing.
Some of the campaigns are reporting in-kind contributions from Hotze’s Conservative Republicans group and also from the Campaign for Houston, but are not listing any amounts for the value of those contributions. See, Carl Jarvis, for example. Dr. Hotze is sending out robocalls encouraging voters to support Jarvis, and also to vote no on HERO, so perhaps that is what this is intended to indicate.
The funding for the anti-HERO forces is much more complicated to analyze, because they formed multiple committees, and filed much of their reporting with the State Ethics Commission, rather than with the City of Houston.
All of the interrelated committees have Bart Standley as their treasurer, and the names of the groups include Conservative Republicans of Texas, Conservative Republicans of Harris County, Campaign for Texas Families, Citizens for Restoration (of theocracy).
Former Congressman Tom Delay is being paid by the Campaign for Texas Families about $1400 for travel associated with events, through his Sugar Land based First Principles LLC.
The Campaign for Texas Families gets its money from Conservative Republicans of Texas.
The Campaign for Houston is shown donating $79,000 to Conservative Republicans of Harris County, and the Conservative Republicans of Texas gave $2500 to the Conservative Republicans of Harris County.
Jeff Yates’ consulting company gets paid $80,000 for “advertising expense.”
Harris media in Austin is also being paid. Gulf Direct, which is Kevin Burnette, also in Austin, is also a consultant.
There is a separate statewide Campaign for Houston committee whose main donors are former failed congressional candidate Peter Wareing ($20,000), and Jack A. Cardwell ($25,000) a trucking executive from El Paso who has donated gobs of money to mostly Republicans, but even some Democrat officeholders.
I am not sure what to make of all the back and forth transfers between these committees, and the fact that the reporting is only being done in Austin, and not with the Houston filings.
And I see nothing on the Campaign for Houston filings to correlate with the reported donation of $79,000 to Conservative Republicans of Harris County.
Digging deeper, I found the $79,000 transfer from Campaign for Houston to Conservative Republicans of Harris County.
I also found $100K for TV to David Lenz Media and $120K to Big Bucks for TV and Radio.
Donors to the state PAC for Campaign for Houston include: County Commissioner Jack Cagle ($1000), city controller candidate Bill Frazer ($500), County Court at Law Judge Clyde Leuchtag ($50), State Sen. Lois Kolkhorst ($5000), voter registrar Mike Sullivan’s office employee Valoree Swanson ($100), former losing congressional candidate Ben Streusand ($2500), former losing judicial candidate Ric Ramos, a family lawyer whose wife is a judge ($15,000), former losing judicial candidate Don Self ($2000), Terry Lowry of the Link Letter publication ($1000), car dealer Mac Haik ($5000), and Alan Hartman ($100,000).
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