For our look at campaign finance.
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Snippets:
No Houston-area megadonor gave more than homebuilder Bob Perry, a key financier of conservative causes for decades, who contributed more than $63 million to candidates and committees between January 2001 and his death in 2013.
That’s almost $30 million more than the next highest donor, John Nau, who is the former chairman and CEO of Silver Eagle Distributors, the nation’s largest independent distributor of Anheuser-Busch beverages.. . .
Where the money went
The largest share of money — more than $37 million — flowed to the influential lobbying group Texans for Lawsuit Reform. The group, formed by Houston homebuilder Dick Weekley, successfully advocated for substantial edits to the Texas civil justice code in the 1990s and early 2000s that made it harder for Texans to sue doctors and corporations when they were injured or otherwise harmed. TLR is itself the largest political donor in Texas politics.
Texans for Greg Abbott received the next largest share of funds from the Houston megadonors, about $24 million since 2001. American Crossroads and Restore Our Future, two federal committees bolstering Republican causes, also received large amounts of money, at $19 million and $13 million, respectively.
