An example of campaign contributions and special interests.
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Gov. Greg Abbott received a $6 million campaign contribution last month, which his campaign is calling the “largest single donation in Texas history.”
Abbott accepted the $6 million donation — dated Dec. 18 — in a little-used account, suggesting he was setting it aside from funds raised for his reelection campaign.
Yass is a billionaire from Pennsylvania who is co-founder and managing director of the Philadelphia-based investment firm Susquehanna International Group. He is also a top proponent of “school choice,” or programs that allow parents to use taxpayer dollars to subsidize private school costs.
Abbott has long been known as a fundraising powerhouse, but the $6 million contribution takes him to a new level. Abbott has previously made headlines for getting single donations of $1 million.
He raised $19 million total over the last six months.
Yass has been called the richest man in Pennsylvania, with an estimated net worth of nearly $29 billion, according to Forbes. His firm was an early investor in TikTok, the social media platform that Abbott banned on state phones and computers in 2022.
When it comes to politics, Yass has also been a multimillion-dollar donor to the Club for Growth, the national anti-tax group that has boosted Texas Republicans like U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz and U.S. Rep. Chip Roy of Austin.
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Who is Jeff Yass?
Yass became a member of the board of directors of the libertarian Cato Institute in 2002 and now is a member of the executive advisory council. In 2015, Yass donated $2.3 million to a Super PAC supporting Rand Paul's presidential candidacy. In 2018 he donated $3.8 million to the Club for Growth, and $20.7 million in 2020.
Yass and his wife, Janine Coslett, are public supporters of school choice, with Coslett writing a 2017 opinion piece for The Washington Examiner in support of then-incoming Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos's views at school choice.
In November 2020, it was reported that Yass had donated $25.3 million, all to Republican candidates, and was one of the ten largest political donors in the US.
In March 2021, an investigation in Haaretz said that Jeff Yass and Arthur Dantchik were behind a large portion of the donations to the Kohelet Policy Forum in Israel.
In November 2021, he donated $5 million to the School Freedom Fund, a PAC that runs ads for Republican candidates running in the 2022 election cycle nationwide.
In June 2022 ProPublica claimed Yass has "avoided $1 billion in taxes" and is "pouring his money into campaigns to cut taxes and support election deniers".
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From Open Secrets: Contributions to Greg Abbott.
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Terminology:
- campaign contribution
- megadonor
- school vouchers
- the March primary
- Club for Growth
- legislative priority
- AFC Victory Fund
- Super PAC
