They are Cisco natives named Dan and Farris. They were early adopters of hydraulic fracking and built a company they sold for $3.5 billion. I mention them, because they are helping fund the effort to swing the House even more conservative than it already is by becoming heavily involved in funding the primary campaigns of far right conservatives who want to remove the merely right conservatives currently holding office.
Here's a story related to that effort from the Texas Tribune.
Here's a story related to that effort from the Texas Tribune.
- Fracking Billionaire Emerges as Key Donor in Texas House Races.
A family of West Texas billionaires heavily invested in U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz's presidential campaign is also vying to play an outsized role in efforts to steer the direction of the Texas House during the next legislative session, according to the latest campaign finance data.
Campaign finance reports covering the last half of 2015 showed some of the largest donations going to two kinds of races: those involving key lieutenants of House SpeakerJoe Straus and those involving some of his loudest critics. In most of those races, many of the largest donations to the latter group trace back to billionaire Farris Wilks of Cisco or a member of his family.
Empower Texans PAC, the campaign arm of the conservative group that has a history of playing a large role in Republican primaries, took in 70 percent of its donations over the six-month reporting period through a single $500,000 donation from Wilks, who along with his brother Dan, made his fortune during the fracking boom of the last decade. The PAC spread much of that money around to a handful of Republican incumbents who have been critical of Straus, including Jonathan Stickland of Bedford, Tony Tinderholt of Arlington, Molly White of Belton and Matt Rinaldi of Irving, along with Republicans vying to unseat Straus allies.
Members of the Wilks family also made large donations directly to those same candidates, as well as a $50,000 donation to Jeff Judson, one of two candidates challenging Straus in the Republican primary.
So here's the lesson. If you want to become politically powerful in the state of Texas. Make a lot of money and then spend it.
For more on the brothers:
- The Forbes 400's Newest Undercover Billionaires: The Wilks Brothers.
- Meet the Billionaire Brothers You Never Heard of Who Fund the Religious Right.
- Nos. 40 and 41: Dan Wilks and Farris Wilks.
