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Two Billionaires Dragging Texas Hard Right, Trying to Destroy Public Education (Spent Millions on Huffines)

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https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/24/politics/texas-far-right-politics-invs/index.html

This is everything we’ve already known, it just puts names to what’s going on.  These are the guys wanting to abolish public education in Texas, and they want a full-on Texas theocracy  

And one of them told Joe Straus to his face that only Christians should hold leadership positions in the Texas House.

These things stood out stood out:

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Dunn and Wilks have been less successful in the 2022 primary elections than in past years: Almost all of the GOP legislative incumbents opposed by Defend Texas Liberty, a political action committee primarily funded by the duo, won their primaries this spring, and the group spent millions of dollars supporting a far-right opponent to Gov. Greg Abbott who lost by a wide margin.

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So far in 2022, Dunn’s and Wilks’ political investments haven’t been as successful as in past years. Defend Texas Liberty, the group they fund, gave more than $3 million to Don Huffines, a former state senator who challenged Abbott in his Republican primary and won just 12% of the vote. Despite his loss, experts pointed out, over the course of the campaign Abbott embraced some of the positions Huffines had staked out, including strong opposition to transgender rights and support for deploying National Guard members to the US-Mexican border.

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People who’ve worked with Wilks and Dunn say they share an ultimate goal: replacing much of public education in Texas with private Christian schools. Now, educators and students are feeling the impact of that conservative ideology on the state’s school system.


More:

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Elected officials and political observers in the state say a major factor in the transformation can be traced back to West Texas. Two billionaire oil and fracking magnates from the region, Tim Dunn and Farris Wilks, have quietly bankrolled some of Texas’ most far-right political candidates – helping reshape the state’s Republican Party in their worldview.

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The beneficiaries of the energy tycoons’ combined spending include the farthest-right members of the legislature and authors of the most high-profile conservative bills passed in recent years, according to a CNN analysis of Texas Ethics Commission data. Dunn and Wilks also hold sway over the state’s legislative agenda through a network of non-profits and advocacy groups that push conservative policy issues. 

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Critics, and even some former associates, say that Dunn and Wilks demand loyalty from the candidates they back, punishing even deeply conservative legislators who cross them by bankrolling primary challengers. Kel Seliger, a longtime Republican state senator from Amarillo who has clashed with the billionaires, said their influence has made Austin feel a little like Moscow. 

@Brisketexan will love this comparison, as it’s dead on.

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“It is a Russian-style oligarchy, pure and simple,” Seliger said. “Really, really wealthy people who are willing to spend a lot of money to get policy made the way they want it – and they get it.”

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Former associates of Dunn and Wilks who spoke to CNN said the billionaires are both especially focused on education issues, and their ultimate goal is to replace public education with private, Christian schooling. Wilks is a pastor at the church his father founded, and Dunn preaches at the church his family attends. In their sermons, they paint a picture of a nation under siege from liberal ideas. 

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“The cornerstones of our government are crumbling and starting to come apart,” Wilks declared in a 2014 sermon at his insular church, the Assembly of Yahweh 7th Day. “And it’s because of the lack of morality, the lack of belief in our heavenly Father.” 

Texas’ far-right shift has national implications: The candidates Dunn and Wilks have supported have turned the state legislature into a laboratory for far-right policy that’s starting to gain traction across the US.

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But experts say the billionaires’ recent struggles are in part a symptom of their past success: Many of the candidates they’re challenging from the right, from Abbott down, have embraced more and more conservative positions, on issues from transgender rights to guns to voting. 

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“They dragged all the moderate candidates to the hard right in order to keep from losing,” said Bud Kennedy, a columnist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram newspaper who’s covered 18 sessions of the Texas legislature. 

“I don’t think regular Texans are as conservative as their elected officials,” Kennedy said. “The reason that Texas has moved to the right is because the money’s there.”

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Over the last decade, many of the most conservative bills in the Texas legislature, on topics from LGBT rights to guns to private school vouchers, were killed by the moderate Republicans who held sway in the state House. That changed last year, thanks to people like Valoree Swanson. 

Swanson was a Sunday school teacher and political activist when she challenged a 14-year incumbent Republican, Debbie Riddle, in 2016 in a district covering Houston’s Republican-dominated northern suburbs. 

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Swanson, who ran to Riddle’s right, shocked political observers by outraising the incumbent – an unusual feat for a first-time candidate. Her largest donor: Empower Texans, a political action committee created by Dunn and largely funded by him and Wilks. She defeated Riddle in the Republican primary by more than 10 percentage points and went on to easily win the general election. 

Last year, Swanson won a major legislative victory: She authored the transgender sports bill, which blocks trans students from playing on K-12 school sports teams that aren’t aligned with their genders at birth. While other bills about transgender issues had failed in previous years, the sports bill was approved by a legislature now firmly controlled by the GOP’s right flank after the moderate former House speaker retired. Observers saw it as a validation of the billionaires’ early investments in Swanson’s first campaign, paying off years later.

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Swanson is hardly an outlier: All 18 of the current Republican members of the Texas Senate, and almost half of the Republican members of the Texas House, have taken at least some money from Dunn, Wilks or organizations that they fund. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and Attorney General Ken Paxton have also been major beneficiaries of the billionaires’ spending. 

Texas is one of just 10 states that allow individuals to make unlimited contributions to state political candidates, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures – letting Dunn and Wilks have more influence than they might elsewhere in the country.

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Defend Texas Liberty’s second-largest beneficiary this year has been Shelley Luther, an unsuccessful far-right legislative candidate who attracted national attention after she was arrested for refusing to shut down her Dallas hair salon to comply with coronavirus restrictions. 

In an interview with CNN, Luther – who proposed banning Chinese students from Texas universities and declared she is “not comfortable with the transgenders” – said that Dunn and Wilks had been integral to her campaign. 

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“Without them, I couldn’t have even run,” Luther said. But she added that the spending wouldn’t have given the billionaires influence over her votes or decisions: “He wants me to do what I say that I represent,” she said of Dunn.

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Dunn and Wilks don’t just use campaign donations to play a role in state politics. They also fund a network of organizations that have been influential at boosting conservative causes. 

Texans for Fiscal Responsibility, a non-profit chaired by Dunn, has released a “Fiscal Responsibility Index” each legislative session grading state lawmakers based on their stances on conservative bills. The scorecard, which is often cited in election ads that show up in voters’ mailboxes, is known in Texas political circles for its ability to make and break Republican primary campaigns. 

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“If you don’t show up well on the scorecard, you’re going to have a lot of money spent against you,” Seliger said.  Texas Republicans say that even a deeply conservative record doesn’t protect someone from a primary challenge funded by Dunn, Wilks and groups they bankroll. 

State Sen. Bob Deuell had won elections for years in his northeast Texas district and racked up a conservative record – including co-authoring a 2013 abortion bill that was considered among the strictest in the country at the time, and was struck down by the US Supreme Court.  But in 2013, Deuell, a doctor, supported a bill that overhauled Texas’ end-of-life procedures. Texas Right to Life, a group whose largest donor over its history is Wilks, falsely claimed the bill would “strengthen Texas’ death panels.” The following year, Deuell was challenged by Bob Hall, a tea party activist.

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Texas Right to Life spent more than $150,000 on mailers, voter guides and political consultants for Hall and other candidates in 2014, airing a barrage of ads claiming Deuell had “turned his back on life and on disabled patients.” Hall won the Republican primary in a runoff by 300 votes. Since that first campaign, Hall has received more than $900,000 from Dunn, Wilks, and groups that they are major funders of – about a third of his total donations. 

“All this West Texas money is what made him into a viable candidate,” Deuell said of Hall, who did not respond to requests for comment from CNN.

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But after Seliger decided he couldn’t support efforts to divert funding from public schools to private school vouchers, Dunn turned on him, he said. In the decade since, he’s found himself repeatedly running against a challenger backed by groups funded by Dunn and Wilks. 

“That’s the law of the jungle now in Texas,” Seliger said. “The majority of Republican Senate members just dance to whatever tune Tim Dunn wants to play.”

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Zachary Maxwell has had an inside view of the billionaires’ influence. He worked for Empower Texans, Dunn’s PAC, and served as campaign manager and chief of staff for then-state Rep. Mike Lang, who received more than 60% of his campaign donations from Wilks and PACs he and Dunn were major funders of. 

Maxwell told CNN in an interview that there was “no way” Lang could have gotten elected without Wilks’ money. At one campaign fundraiser, he said, Jo Ann Wilks handed Maxwell a check for more than $100,000.  “I was like, ‘Can you even write a check that big?’ ” Maxwell remembered. “I about had a heart attack.” 

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Huge sums like that helped buy Wilks influence once Lang took office, Maxwell said. “Whenever (Farris Wilks) called, he answered,” Maxwell said of Lang. “There was a lot of control.”  Lang did not respond to requests for comment from CNN.

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What sets Dunn and Wilks apart, political observers say, is how they’ve spent so much money pushing not just business-friendly policies that boost their bottom line but also socially conservative bills that seem designed to reshape Texas in the image of their far-right Christian values.

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Farris Wilks is the pastor of the Assembly of Yahweh 7th Day Church, which operates a sprawling compound outside of Cisco and was founded by his father. In sermons, he has denounced homosexuality and abortion rights in vitriolic terms. 

“A male on male or a female on female is against nature,” Wilks declared in a 2013 recording of one sermon posted on his church’s website, which is no longer publicly available. “This lifestyle is the predatorial lifestyle in that they need your children. … They want your children.” 

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Dunn also preaches at his church, the Midland Bible Church, where he serves as a member of the congregation’s “pulpit team.” 

“No matter what rules you grew up with, none of them are enforceable in God’s kingdom,” he declared in one 2018 sermon.

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In a 2004 interview with The Times of London, Dunn told a reporter he believed that, as the newspaper put it, “his oil has existed for only 4,000 years, the time decreed by Genesis, not 200 million years as his geologists know.” 

That religious fervor has influenced Dunn’s and Wilks’ political moves. In a meeting with former Texas House Speaker Joe Straus, who is Jewish, Dunn declared that only Christians should hold leadership positions in the chamber, Texas Monthly reported. Straus declined an interview request with CNN. 

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And both Wilks brothers have donated millions of dollars through their personal foundations to conservative Christian groups, including crisis pregnancy centers, according to IRS records, which work to dissuade women from abortion and in some cases share misleading medical information.

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Dorothy Burton, a former GOP activist and religious scholar, joined Farris Wilks on a 2015 Christian speaking tour organized by his brother-in-law and said she spoke at events he attended. She described the fracking magnate as “very quiet” but approachable: “You would look at him and you would never think that he was a billionaire,” she said. 

But Burton said that after a year of hearing Wilks’ ideology on the speaking circuit, she became disillusioned by the single-mindedness of his conservatism. “The goal is to tear up, tear down public education to nothing and rebuild it,” she said of Wilks. “And rebuild it the way God intended education to be.” 

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In sermons, Dunn and Wilks have advocated for religious influence in schooling. “When the Bible plainly teaches one thing and our culture teaches another, what do our children need to know what to do?” Wilks asks in one sermon from 2013. 

Dunn, Wilks and the groups and politicians they both fund have been raising alarms about liberal ideas in the classroom, targeting teachers and school administrators they see as too progressive. The billionaires have especially focused on critical race theory, in what critics see as an attempt to use it as a scapegoat to break voters’ trust in public schooling.

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In the summer of 2020, James Whitfield, the first Black principal of the mostly White Colleyville Heritage High School in the Dallas suburbs, penned a heartfelt, early-morning email in the wake of George Floyd’s murder, encouraging his school to “not grow weary in the battle against systemic racism.”

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The backlash came months later. Stetson Clark, a former school board candidate whose campaign had been backed by a group that received its largest donations from Dunn and organizations he funded, accused Whitfield during a school board meeting last year of “encouraging all members of our community to become revolutionaries” and “encouraging the destruction and disruption of our district.” The board placed Whitfield on leave, and later voted not to renew his contract. He agreed to resign after coming to a settlement with the district. Clark did not respond to a request for comment. 

Whitfield said he saw the rhetoric pushed by Dunn and Wilks as a major cause of his being pushed out. “They want to disrupt and destroy public schools, because they would much rather have schools that are faith-based,” Whitfield said. “We know what has happened over the course of history in our country, and if we can’t teach that, then what do you want me to do?” 

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Meanwhile, the legislature has also been taking on the discussion of race in classrooms, passing a bill last year that bans schools from making teachers “discuss a widely debated and currently controversial issue of public policy or social affairs.” The legislation was designed to keep critical race theory out of the classroom, according to Abbott, who signed the bill into law. 

Some of the co-authors and sponsors of the bill and previous versions of the legislation received significant funding from Dunn and Wilks.  The billionaires “want to destroy the public school system as we know it and, in its place, see more home-schooling and more private Christian schools,” said Deuell, the former senator.

 

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  • atomheartbevo changed the title to Two Billionaires Dragging Texas Hard Right, Trying to Destroy Public Education (Spent Millions on Huffines)
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Jhawkmvp

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When it comes to how others live their lives, a normal person is like is what they are doing affecting me? Are they hurting anyone? If not, then live and let live. The problem with highly religious people is they can't just leave others alone. They have to push their religions tenants onto everyone. Religion in politics is what is driving our country to the brink. Politics is compromise.  There is no compromise with true believers and now the Republican party has done the same to politics with the evangelical/fundamentalist infection.

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staboner

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11 minutes ago, Jhawkmvp said:

When it comes to how others live their lives, a normal person is like is what they are doing affecting me? Are they hurting anyone? If not, then live and let live. The problem with highly religious people is they can't just leave others alone. They have to push their religions tenants onto everyone. Religion in politics is what is driving our country to the brink. Politics is compromise.  There is no compromise with true believers and now the Republican party has done the same to politics with the evangelical/fundamentalist infection.

was just gonna say this. 

i've never understood the need to tell others what to do. that level of insecurity is so damn strange. 

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WBT

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A competent opposition party in Texas would make these guys more famous than Soros and make every campaign about them.  Hell, competent Republican leadership would have beat them back before they caused the suburban backlash. 

Anyway, it's not like any of this is new:

https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/power-issue-tim-dunn-pushing-republican-party-arms-god/

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NWBuck

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54 minutes ago, Jhawkmvp said:

When it comes to how others live their lives, a normal person is like is what they are doing affecting me? Are they hurting anyone? If not, then live and let live. The problem with highly religious people is they can't just leave others alone. They have to push their religions tenants onto everyone. Religion in politics is what is driving our country to the brink. Politics is compromise.  There is no compromise with true believers and now the Republican party has done the same to politics with the evangelical/fundamentalist infection.

It's not just religious zealotry that drives this, but a self centeredness that's at the heart of much of American life. Even if it's not a "I don't want other people to do things I don't like", we all have a little bit of "I don't want my money to be spent so that other people can do things that I don't like" in us. In this case, people with copious amounts of money feel even more territorial about it, and have the leverage to make everyone else's life miserable.

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atomheartbevo

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10 minutes ago, PenelopeWitherspoon said:

They need to be famous, and not in a good way.

They would welcome the publicity at this point - think of Mitch McConnell and the wall in his office decorated with articles and political cartoons attacking him.  And unless another billionaire or two steps up and funds candidates to run against their candidates, nothing will or can change.  

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troph

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If about 30 - 50 million people who don’t vote don’t start voting  nationwide we are fucked to Bolivia. It’s about to be that bad and not recoverable. It’s almost over folks figure out how you want to watch it end because it’s about 11 o’clock in the evening and the end is nigh, the clock will strike midnight within the next couple of years. 

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pyrohornIII

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1 hour ago, PenelopeWitherspoon said:

They need to be famous, and not in a good way.

I learned more about ted cruz's dad in that brief program than everything to date.  Explains a whole lot of Cruz's motivation and moves.

These two zealots names should be the instant rebuttal to every time Soros is mentioned.  Dominionism should be the the rebuttal every time socialism is mentioned as an evil.   

But instead of just using words and names, we need to be able to define these people, talk about what they are doing in simple terms.   Expose their shit for what it is.

Why the TDP hasn't already started this I have no idea.  

MTG was pushing this from some pulpit today, the christian nationalism.  

Here's a good follow.  

 

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Huckleberry

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One of the many pitiful parts of the anti-public education push in Texas is that it's being made by those who claim to be "originalists" and "conservatives" and the like.

The Texas Declaration of Independence specifically cited the lack of a public education system as one of the reasons they were seceding from Mexico.

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Neonmoon

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4 minutes ago, Huckleberry said:

The Texas Declaration of Independence specifically cited the lack of a public education system as one of the reasons they were seceding from Mexico

This will be erased from the new Christian Nationalist textbooks 

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WhatTheBuck

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2 hours ago, Voldemort86 said:

Yeah…..

the legislature proved last year that they don’t give a fuck about people. They didn’t do shit to reinforce the power grid. All they care is guns, bibles, and sticking it to transgenders / gay people.

“God, guns, and gays.”

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Scheiss Meister

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4 minutes ago, CTC2 said:

I have no problem with God.  What I do have a problem with are those people who think they know what God wants.

I think it was Lily Tomlin who said in one of her routines something like, "Talking to God isn't the problem; it's the people who think God talks back to them who are the issue."

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WhatTheBuck

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34 minutes ago, CTC2 said:

I have no problem with God.  What I do have a problem with are those people who think they know what God wants.

The religious right thinks God wants exactly what they do. And so should you. And if you don’t then that makes you bad. 

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hpslugga

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11 hours ago, staboner said:

was just gonna say this. 

i've never understood the need to tell others what to do. that level of insecurity is so damn strange. 

Dude, they believe in bullshit and they need to constantly validate that belief so as to not shake their fragile “confidence” in it. Every fallacy that can be used to justify this behavior has been used, and every argument that has been used to justify this behavior is fallacious.

The biggest ones they use are false equivalence and projection wherein they make believe that they’re the victims of persecution. They pretend “evolutionism is being forced down our throats against our will,” “prayer in school is illegal,” “conservative political thought isn’t allowed,” etc…all while simultaneously trying to force “intelligent design” into biology courses, reintroducing the nation to compulsory prayer in public schools, and passing all sorts of laws banning the teaching of so-called “critical race theory.”

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Mrs Whiggins

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8 minutes ago, hpslugga said:

Dude, they believe in bullshit and they need to constantly validate that belief so as to not shake their fragile “confidence” in it. Every fallacy that can be used to justify this behavior has been used, and every argument that has been used to justify this behavior is fallacious.

The biggest ones they use are false equivalence and projection wherein they make believe that they’re the victims of persecution. They pretend “evolutionism is being forced down our throats against our will,” “prayer in school is illegal,” “conservative political thought isn’t allowed,” etc…all while simultaneously trying to force “intelligent design” into biology courses, reintroducing the nation to compulsory prayer in public schools, and passing all sorts of laws banning the teaching of so-called “critical race theory.”

Grouping them with the Taliban government in Afghanistan would not be out of the question (were the Christian centered government they desire be realized). In Afghanistan, girls over the age of 12 have still yet to be allowed back in school.

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troph

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12 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

So, I had never heard of these yokels.  

Turns out the brothers Wilks are not even Christian by any normal definition.  They are Assembly of Yahweh (7th Day), which is some weird little Old Testament, Jews for Jesus type of thing.  https://www.halleluyah.org/who-we-are

That’s double down fundamentalist. Btw normal definition Christians don’t have a problem with secular government. 

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Homercles

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Believe it was here in the CR that someone posted a very succinct Twitter thread that surmised these peoples whole life revolves around ‘I can tell you what to do, you cannot tell me what to do’.  And that is exactly the crux…

They'll shove gun, abortion, transgender, identity politics down your throat trying to force everyone into their ideal but the moment any legislature is proposed on gun control it’s “big government is overreaching”

The irony across the board…every accusation a confession, they all beat you over the head with the word freedom, they plaster themselves in American flags.  It’s disgusting 

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Js1

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1 minute ago, Homercles said:

Believe it was here in the CR that someone posted a very succinct Twitter thread that surmised these peoples whole life revolves around ‘I can tell you what to do, you cannot tell me what to do’.  And that is exactly the crux…

They'll shove gun, abortion, transgender, identity politics down your throat trying to force everyone into their ideal but the moment any legislature is proposed on gun control it’s “big government is overreaching”

The irony across the board…every accusation a confession, they all beat you over the head with the word freedom, they plaster themselves in American flags.  It’s disgusting 

My big government overreach is superior to yours.  You can’t tell me what to do, but I can tell you what you CAN’T do

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hpslugga

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2 hours ago, Homercles said:

Believe it was here in the CR that someone posted a very succinct Twitter thread that surmised these peoples whole life revolves around ‘I can tell you what to do, you cannot tell me what to do’.  And that is exactly the crux…

They'll shove gun, abortion, transgender, identity politics down your throat trying to force everyone into their ideal but the moment any legislature is proposed on gun control it’s “big government is overreaching”

The irony across the board…every accusation a confession, they all beat you over the head with the word freedom, they plaster themselves in American flags.  It’s disgusting 

I literally know people who insist that “freedom of religion” as read in the first amendment is supposed to be interpreted to mean “freedom to choose between denominations of Christianity.”

They won’t say it out loud, but whenever they say “freedom of choice,” that’s supposed to mean “freedom to choose between the choices I give you.” 

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A-Tex Devil

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At what point do these guys' wants and needs start running afoul of the multinationals in Houston or the Joe Lonsdales and Elon Musks of the world and other PE/VC money coming to Texas (Vista, etc.)?  The playbook is there to spend a modicum amount of money on local races to get a desired result.  

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Nivek

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4 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

So, I had never heard of these yokels.  

Turns out the brothers Wilks are not even Christian by any normal definition.  They are Assembly of Yahweh (7th Day), which is some weird little Old Testament, Jews for Jesus type of thing.  https://www.halleluyah.org/who-we-are

Our Lady of Perpetual Exemption was already taken. 

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Fudge Nuggets

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57 minutes ago, A-Tex Devil said:

At what point do these guys' wants and needs start running afoul of the multinationals in Houston or the Joe Lonsdales and Elon Musks of the world and other PE/VC money coming to Texas (Vista, etc.)?  The playbook is there to spend a modicum amount of money on local races to get a desired result.  

Only if their taxes go up.  In other words, never.  Your taxes and mine on the other hand…

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A-Tex Devil

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9 minutes ago, Fudge Nuggets said:

Only if their taxes go up.  In other words, never.  Your taxes and mine on the other hand…

Fair.  Probably a bit naive on my part.  I’m not an Elon fan, but he’s enough of a troll to go after/compete with these guys presuming TWTR ends up being just a flesh wound.  

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pyrohornIII

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3 hours ago, RDCanecutter said:

Dunn and Wilks. Haven't seen a photo but I am imagining obesity meets Western Wear. amiwrong amiwrong?

Dunn reminds me of Ron Johnson and Wilks reminds me of that fat bald cop from breaking bad.   Neither of them are over the top in appearance.  Pretty low key looking guys.  

I watched that series on the mormon fundamentalist branch that were under a "Prophet" and trafficked young girls.  These two guys def give off that "Prophet" vibe.  

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kevwun

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21 minutes ago, longhornmatt said:

It hasn’t reached the point where they’re bad for business, yet, but I agree with your point.  If they push too far, there are deeper pockets and bigger interests that would return fire.  Right now people like Dunn and Wilks just care more and spend more time and money influencing primaries and state and local politics, but eventually they will piss others off enough to get them equally as motivated for those races which otherwise wouldn’t catch their attention.

Of course, what constitutes “too far” to most Texans is probably way further than what most of this board would like. But these guys in particular are kind of trying to catch the tiger by its tail.  Even the other Evangelicals and MAGA types aren’t going to go along with it if they really get what they want, like replacing public schools for Tim Dunn’s version of education.  It’s not just progressives these guys can’t get along with.  These are two guys who had to start their own churches because the regular small town fire and brimstone Baptist and Church of Christ places were too progressive for them (or even just too under someone else’s control for them).

School choice sounds all well and good to the base until those people realize he really means their kids have to go to the kind of school Tim Dunn chooses, not the one they choose.  Then the holy wars start and are just as bitter as the R vs. D stuff.

Yeah, I have felt for a while that the issue in Texas that's going to eventually fuck them is going after public schools.  Small town folks love their local high school sports teams and are going to have a fit when they're put in danger.  Jr. is going to play football at Insert Name Here High School just like his dad did and if you do anything to hurt that, God have mercy on your soul.

Edited by kevwun
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atomheartbevo

atomheartbevo 89695

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2 hours ago, hpslugga said:

I literally know people who insist that “freedom of religion” as read in the first amendment is supposed to be interpreted to mean “freedom to choose between denominations of Christianity.”

They won’t say it out loud, but whenever they say “freedom of choice,” that’s supposed to mean “freedom to choose between the choices I give you.” 

And not Catholics.  Because they do like taking orders from the Vaticans.  And a lot of Catholics are minorities.

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