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AUSTIN — A top House lawmaker who led the charge to require politically active nonprofits to reveal their donors, a lightning rod issue opposed by Gov. Greg Abbott, says he wants Texas voters to decide the issue at the ballot box.
State Rep. Byron Cook, a Republican from Corsicana who narrowly won re-election earlier this month, said he is planning to propose next legislative session an amendment to the state constitution on the issue of disclosing so-called "dark money" donors.
A proposal to prevent politically active nonprofits from shielding the identities of their donors ended up tanking a comprehensive ethics bill last year. The House added the disclosure requirement to the Legislature's biggest ethics measure of the session, but the amended proposal was rejected by Lt. Gov Dan Patrick and the Senate.
Given that backdrop, Cook's proposal already is being cast by campaign finance reformers as more than a long shot. It would require approval from two-thirds of lawmakers in both chambers before it could be placed on a ballot for Texas voters.
But it appears to be the only gambit available to skirt Abbott's veto pen for Cook and lawmakers pushing for political nonprofit disclosure. The governor does not have the power to nullify a joint resolution proposing amendments to the state constitution.
"It's a priority bill for the state of Texas," Cook, the chairman of the powerful House State Affairs Committee, said in an interview. "If we don't help give transparency to this issue, there'll be no reason for any candidate to do anything other than set up vehicles to allow them to receive money anonymously."
Most politically active nonprofits are allowed to spend money to influence elections independent of candidates but do not have to reveal who is funding the efforts (527 groups are required to disclose donors). The nonprofits, mostly 501(c)4s, have argued their donor lists are constitutionally protected.
Campaign cash from politically active nonprofits that do not disclose donors represents just a fraction of the hundreds of millions of dollars flowing into Texas elections. Some lawmakers, including Cook, have warned that the growing number of groups spending anonymous campaign cash in state elections could eventually lead to a major scandal.
The topic has become the most divisive campaign finance issue for the Legislature going back to 2013, when former Gov. Rick Perry vetoed a dark money disclosure measure authored by Republican state Sen. Kel Seliger. Last year's debate ended in the complete collapse of an emergency item for Abbott: ethics reform.
After the legislative session ended, Abbott signaled clearly how the state's top leader views the issue.
"As a justice on the Texas Supreme Court, I wrote that laws like that are unconstitutional and I based that decision on United States Supreme Court decisions," Abbott said at a news conference last year. "It's important for legislators to not to try and pass laws that have already been ruled unconstitutional."
Cook said given the political climate at the Legislature he believes the next logical step is to take the issue to Texas voters.
Details of the proposal are still being worked out, he said, but it could draw from a bill he authored last year that required groups making independent expenditures of $25,000 or more to disclose the names of donors who give $2,000 or more.
"This is an extremely important issue and only becoming more and more topical, as more groups move toward secretly funding campaigns, which is going to undermine transparency," he said. "We should make a serious effort to make sure the public is aware of who is behind the message with respect to political campaigns."
However, even supporters of campaign finance reform are largely skeptical that Cook's initiative will gain traction. Craig McDonald, director of the left-leaning watchdog group Texans for Public Justice, said "there's too much political clout lined up against transparency in elections."
"Keeping attention on the exploding use of dark money is laudable," said McDonald. "Getting a disclosure amendment to the ballot in the face of active opposition from the governor and lieutenant governor is politically impossible."
