Back in summer 2021, a few Texas State House Democrats banded together and formed a progressive caucus. Great news, right? 

That’s what we initially thought, but when we looked further, we found that no members of said progressive caucus refused campaign contributions from large corporations or influential lobbyists in 2021.

We were shocked, but held out hope and tried to dig further by looking at all Texas State Senate Democrats too. Can you guess what we found? Again, no members of that group entirely refused campaign contributions from either large corporations or lobbyists in 2021.  

While we hold no doubt that some of these representatives genuinely try to advance progressive values and policies, we’ve seen what happens in blue states (California and Oregon for example) where corporate and special interest donations continue to be left unchecked. 

As we continue unveiling states, you’ll notice this is not a particular individual’s issue, but is a systemic-wide one instead. There’s no doubt about it, we need legislation reforming state finance laws that don’t allow any representatives to take these types of contributions.

Incumbents have immense power and an opportunity to set an example for the rest of their state and the country by refusing these donations. Not only are these donations wrong to take, incumbents don’t need them either. They are getting so much support from individual donors that refusing special interest donations would seem like a blip in their campaign accounts. 

Call on Texas Democrats to start refusing lobbyist or large corporate campaign donations.