Breckenridge Texan

We need more transparency, less donor influence.

Editor’s Note: This column originally appeared in The Dallas Morning News, where Glenn Rogers is a contributing columnist.

By Glenn Rogers

As the primary season winds down, the seemingly endless annoyances of political texts, mailers and TV ads, full of misinformation and outright lies, are again freshly imprinted on our political consciousness. And the next chaotic event is right around the corner: There are local elections in May, and the general election is only eight months away. Bless our hearts.

To make these election cycles less infuriating and more democratic, we need two kinds of election reform: limits on corporate spending, and requirements for campaign transparency.

Money talks

Two epic U.S. Supreme Court decisions have drastically changed the political contribution landscape. Citizens United v. FEC lifted restrictions on campaign spending from corporations and unions. Speechnow.org v. FEC facilitated the advent of behemoth political action committees, called super PACs, as long as they don’t coordinate directly with candidates. As a result, U.S. political contributions by billionaires have increased 160-fold since 2010, according to Americans for Tax Fairness.

Couple the exorbitant corporate donations with the alarming growth of hidden, dark money strategies and you have the virtual elimination of representative government.

The ability of citizen leaders with a strong desire for public service has largely been replaced with candidates who cater more to their wealthy donors than the citizens they are elected to represent.

Legislators who vote for the interests of their district in opposition to big money donor interests are usually guaranteed a primary opponent along with unwarranted character assassination and smear campaigns that only big money can buy.

As a lifelong conservative capitalist, I have no aversion to billionaires. Actually, it would be really awesome to be one. I can only dream about how much ranch land and how many cows I could buy. Being a billionaire is great. Using that wealth to control the entire U.S. and Texas political system is not.

Big money interests influence Texas campaigns in more ways than just campaign spending. In 2019, after I made the questionable decision to throw my hat in the ring for state representative, I made a trip to Eastland, Texas to meet the local county Republican chair. I thought this was to be a private meeting, but there were a few others in attendance, including a local pastor who is also a relative of political megadonor Farris Wilks. The tone of that meeting was antagonistic, as I was interrogated about how staunchly I was committed to the pro-life cause.

I realized this wasn’t a meeting about good policy or winning elections against Democrats. It was an inquisition, presided over, as most things are in Texas politics, by an unseen oligarch.

That day, I ran afoul of the tribunal when I stated that I didn’t believe a few billionaires should have control over Texas politics. The pastor immediately pointed an accusatory finger at me and said, “You’re a socialist!”

My jaw dropped. As a lifelong conservative and rural Republican, no one had ever called me a socialist. But in the current environment, facts don’t matter; only donor loyalty does.

Campaign finance reform

There are two buckets of reform needed to right the ship: Reverse or weaken the deleterious Supreme Court decisions, and pass laws to improve campaign transparency.

Supreme Court decisions have allowed corporations to increase influence on government policy, regulations and spending while drowning out the voices of individual citizens and small businesses. The rulings have resulted in federal overreach and created an uneven playing field by stifling state laws that historically regulated corporate political activity. This should not be a partisan issue, with one survey reporting 70% of Republicans favoring reform.

The Citizens United decision will not be easily overturned either by a court decision or a constitutional amendment. However, states can begin to pass “trigger” legislation like that used in Texas and other states prior to the reversal of Roe v Wade. Anti-abortion strategists credited these trigger laws with catalyzing the political will to overturn Roe.

Other states are working to redefine corporate powers, removing authority to spend in elections. This strategy defines corporate entities as creatures of state law, not possessing the same political rights as individuals.

Improving transparency about the sources of campaign money could also deter political shenanigans. Repetitive false messaging strategies benefit candidates with large campaign war chests simply because repetition costs money. Likewise, photoshopped and deep fake political pieces are more effective from increased distribution and repetition available through large financial resources.

Currently, dark money PACs must report the amount of money spent in an election cycle, but not who they support. In the 88th Legislature, I authored House Bill 2629 which would have corrected this transparency hurdle. Gov. Greg Abbott vetoed the bill.

In the 89th session, Rep. Dade Phelan had two good bills that would have either increased transparency or reformed campaign contributions.

The Deep Fake Disclosure Bill would have required political advertisements to disclose if they contained substantially altered imagery, video or audio. The bill passed the House but failed to pass the Senate.

A bill to limit out-of-state donations suffered the same fate. It sought to cap campaign contributions from donors outside Texas at $5,000 for statewide races, $2,500 for district offices and $1,000 for county offices. The out-of-state voucher lobby spent millions in Texas. In 2024, Abbott received the largest statewide contribution in Texas history from Pennsylvania TikTok investor and voucher supporter Jeff Yass.

It would appear that the major obstacles to campaign finance reform and transparency are our current governor and senators who have shown little desire to change the corrupt system.

The founders of our constitutional republic, including Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, feared that concentrated wealth injected into politics would lead to widespread corruption and an oligarchy. Wise men indeed!

Glenn Rogers is a rancher and veterinarian in Palo Pinto County. He served in the Texas House of Representatives from 2021 to 2025, representing Stephens County. He is a Dallas Morning News contributing columnist.