Who Runs El Paso? & Glass Houses

Money has always been an issue in campaigns. Interests - good and bad - get involved in races. Sometimes that interest is a wealthy billionaire, sometimes that interest is wealthy white people on the westside who want a trail.

Point is, it costs money to run a campaign and there is no way around that. Unless you're independently wealthy, you're going to have to take campaign contributions. The same people who complain about the influence of money in campaigns are the same people who complain about an elected official making a decent salary. Which means they want it both ways, they want some idealistic do-gooder who is talented, smart, and has the right heart to enter public service, take no money, and get paid basically nothing to do it.

Ask yourself something - do you really want the wealthy people the ONLY people that can represent you in public office? Because that is the alternative to not taking campaign money.

There is a book floating around political circles about who influences El Paso policy through political contributions - ironically written by someone who tries to influence El Paso policy though political contributions. My biggest beef with the book isn't the general point they are making, its the fact that people favorited by Stout aren't mentioned and the contributions those people receive dwarf COP's.

Funny how Dr. Kathleen Staudtt doesn't disclose that she frequently donates to campaigns on a regular basis. But that is a story for another day.

That book, and a fairly frequent attack line by State Representative Candidate for District 76 Elisa Tamayo, got me to poking around at campaign finance reports.

Tamayo goes after Claudia Ordaz Perez, her opponent for the seat, by raising the issue of COP getting money from the traditional donors in El Paso. As Ross Moore, President of the local El Paso American Federation of Teachers puts it - "the Billionaires and Bosses". Tamayo and her supporters use phrases like "special interests" and "bought and paid for".

Well, there's nothing voters in El Paso hate more that hypocrisy.

So lets chat about Elisa Tamayo and hypocrisy.

At a recent debate Tamayo again went on the attack against COP. I guess COP finally had enough of Tamayo attacking her and fired back pointing out that Tamayo's top donors were members of the El Paso Delegation - like Cesar Blanco and Joe Moody - and they are funded by the very same people that fund Ordaz Perez.

You should have seen the look on Tamayo's face. She wasn't used to being hit back. She looks around the crowd, searching for help. Looking for someone to throw her a bone and help her out. In fact, part of me thinks she probably didn't even know that the very people Tamayo has been demonizing by giving out Max Grossman's talking points, are the very people who fund her biggest contributors.

In fact, if Ordaz Perez wanted to go on the attack - the facts about where Tamayo gets her campaign cash would be a pretty easy negative ad to throw together.

So for all of you "who runs El Paso" folks that are concerned about "special interests", here's some facts about Tamayo's donors you won't find in that book but are pretty interesting.

You memmur when Beto O'Rourke ran for senator and then for president? Beto spoke about how bad the influence of PACs was on politics.

Senator-in-waiting Cesar Blanco - just on one campaign finance report (his most recent) received money from 46 - count'em - 46 different PACs. Cesar Blanco has more than $300,000 in his campaign account.

He has no opponent.

Staggering numbers, right? Take a little looksie for yourself. Click here to see Cesar Blanco's most recent filing report. Here's a screenshot for your convenience.

Political Action Committees - which by definition are those special interest groups Tamayo is wagging her self-righteous finger about toward her opponent - make up nearly 48% of one of her biggest contributors' (Blanco) contributions.

Some of that money are PACs from unions. Some of it. But that makes up a small portion of his PAC money.

But aside from the PAC money he got - there are some pretty notable contributions on his report. First - and I'd LOVE to hear Tamayo's explanation for this one - a check for $2,5000 from ... wait for it... Woody Hunt! That check was from Hunt AFTER Ordaz Perez announced her candidacy. Blanco didn't seem to think it was bad to take a check from Hunt then.

That is just a drop in the bucket compared to the $6,000 from the TLR.

Even that $6,000 contribution from the TLR is dwarfed by the money Blanco got - in just one contribution from someone described as one of the most influential people in Austin. Let me circle back to that debate where Claudia Ordaz Perez fired back at Tamayo for her attack about COP's donors.

Ordaz Perez said she'd support a cap on contributions. Tamayo tried to cut her off and asked, "how much, $10,000?"

I remembered that when I was looking at Blanco's report and it showed a $20,000 - twice the amount Tamayo blurted out - in one contribution, from Russell Kelly. He's the aforementioned big-shot who is with Blackridge, a lobbying firm.

Twenty-FREAKING-grand...

In one shot.

Oh yeah, something I didn't mention earlier - that 48% of Blanco's contributions that came from PACs (which totaled more than $86,000)?

And whuddaya know? Guess who hosted a fundraiser for Tamayo in Austin?

Thats right, Blackridge.

And you know what, lets just add one more interesting item from Blanco's report to the mix.

Its not illegal.

Its not unethical.

Its just douchey.

Its great that he donated to the victims fund following the August 3rd shooting.

But man its just so damn douchey that he did it with campaign funds.

And something that might be of special interest - no pun intended - to all you hug a trail and save a dog tree people - Blanco gets OIL MONEY!

So if anyone is open up to an attack about special interest money, its Tamayo.

....and that is just Cesar Blanco!

Her other largest contributor is Speaker Pro-Temp Joe Moody.

Joe Moody technically has an opponent, albeit a Republican. He raised $64,825.88 on the last finance report. He received money from 33 different PACs on that report alone. No where near as many PACs as Cesar - but the percentage of Moody's campaign dollars raised from PACs was way more than Cesar -  76.74%!

And yes, one of the PACs was the TLR.

But seriously, the most egregious part isn't mentioned in that book about who runs El Paso. And of course, Tamayo doesn't mention it either - quite possibly because she hasn't even put it together herself and doesn't know she's smack-talking her own donor - but Joe Moody actually WORKS for one of the donors that Tamayo has been talking about.

I guess there was no chapter in The Who Runs El Paso book asking the obvious question of why a guy who has been a prosecutor, then a defense lawyer suddenly gets hired as a lawyer for bank, run by one of the big donors in town.

The same people critical of Ordaz Perez for her donations have absolutely nothing to say about other people that they like, that get the same donations, or in the case of Congresswoman Escobar, SUBSTANTIALLY more.

So why is it so bad for Ordaz Perez but not others? Why is it okay for Escobar, but not Ordaz Perez?

Remember that whole bought-and-paid-for-by-billionaires thing? Well guess who took money from a billionaire with a political interest in El Paso?

That's right - Elisa Tamayo.

And the really bad part about talking about contributions with the lens that they have been discussing the issue, is that they say nothing of the part of all of this that really needs reform.

How they can spend campaign money.

Do you know that there's a member of the delegation - Senator Jose Rodriguez - who pays $1,000 per month to rent a Lexus? That is more money that most people's mortgage in SD76 and he's another one of Tamayo's donors.

State legislators can pay for a lot of living expenses with campaign cash and completely get away with it.

So after reading this, I imagine several of you are pretty upset. Well don't take my word for it, go check finance reports. You'll see for yourself where I got the screenshots from and it was minimal effort to find this info out. Begs the question why the authors of the book didn't bother to check it out.

But it gets much worse. All that talk I did of how many different PACs are giving to Tamayo's biggest supporters is pretty concerning. More concerning is the fact that you've probably read this far and haven't noticed that I haven't used the word "Lobbyist" yet.

Astute observation.

All those totals I gave you early - don't even count the money they got from lobbyists. That money is a whole other world of campaign finance influence.