Texas set to ban private money to manage elections; practice called 'rife for corruption'

The Texas Legislature has sent Gov. Greg Abbott legislation that will ban local election officials from accepting private money to underwrite the management of elections.

If the Republican governor signs House Bill 2283 as expected, Texas will join Georgia, Arkansas, Arizona and other states that have banned private funds after private citizens, most notably Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, pumped hundreds of millions of dollars into nonprofit election groups leading up to the November 2020 general election. The bill was sent to Abbott on May 31.

The groups, including the Center for Tech and Civic Life, granted the money to local officials if they agreed to follow a set of voting procedures outlined by the groups. The Center and others billed themselves as good government groups working to secure safe elections during the COVID-19 pandemic, but many criticized their actions as little more than get-out-the-vote efforts for the Democratic Party. The CTCL is headed by former Democratic operatives.

The sponsor of the Texas legislation, state Rep. Phil King (R-Weatherford), noted that the ban holds no matter what party or candidate the money is targeting for support.   

In April, when the Texas House passed his legislation, King called it “a bipartisan election bill," Texas Scorecard reported, adding, "When money flows in from outside sources, it’s just rife for corruption from all sides.” 

Zuckerberg's money covered 74% of Texas residents in 115 of the state’s 254 counties, a research brief published by the Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF) found.

“If Texas’ election was limited only to those counties receiving the private funds, Joe Biden would have bested Donald Trump by roughly 270,000 votes,” the brief said. “In November 2020 Texas performed two kinds of elections. While the majority of counties (only 26% of state population) stuck to established/publicly budgeted procedures, the rest took Silicon Valley money in return for preferred administrative practices.”

The PILF research also determined that "ZuckBucks" flipped some counties from red to blue.

“Tarrant County, the last urban red county in Texas, flipped in 2020 with Biden improving by 43% in raw votes over 2016 to Trump’s 18% improvement,” the brief said.

CTCL’s method of operation was similar in other battleground states.

The Capital Research Center (CRC), a Washington, D.C.-based group that investigates the political activities of nonprofits, found that CTCL's grants in Arizona were heavily centered in four of the five counties that Biden won. Trump carried the other 10 less-populous Arizona counties. 

Biden's counties made up 85% of his total votes. Maricopa County, by far the most populous county, received nearly $3 million. Conversely, only five of Trump's counties were granted CTCL money, and they totaled only 11% of his overall vote count. Biden carried Arizona by nearly 11,000 votes, the first Democratic presidential candidate to win the state since 1996 and only the second since 1948.

“CTCL’s dealings with local government officials should receive thorough scrutiny from both the IRS and state officials,” Scott Walter, president of the CRC, told Legal Newsline for an earlier story. “The IRS’ legal line for nonprofits like CTCL when they fund voter registration and get-out-the-vote efforts is unclear but can be violated.

"Likewise state law on private actors funding government offices is complicated but can be violated,” Walter added. “A presidential election is too important for the questions raised by CTCL not to be investigated, especially given the extraordinary correlation between where CTCL funded in Georgia and large shifts in voting patterns.”

In March, the U.S. House approved election overhaul legislation, H.R. 1, that places control of all elections in the hands of the federal government. A provision in the bill, which the Senate could take up later this month, will allow local elections officials to accept private money.