AUSTIN, Texas — Empower Texans, the deep-pocketed conservative advocacy group, is well-known for its heavy hand in steering the Texas GOP further to the right and for its setup that hides its funding sources from the public.

The tea party-aligned group, chaired by Midland oilman Tim Dunn and created in 2006, has served as the “kingmaker for many Republicans in very conservative areas,” supporting and recruiting candidates to challenge sitting Republicans in primary elections. Its political action committee is mostly funded by a small group of billionaires and multimillionaires.

What You Need To Know

  • Empower Texans has donated roughly $9.5 million to individual campaigns since 2007

  • The "kingmaker" PAC has only donated to one candidate so far this cycle, Rep. Tony Tinderholt of Arlington

  • The PAC has been the center of controversy this year

  • Several state Republicans have publicly rebuked the organization

Political observers around the state note that the PAC and non-profit, which publishes a “scorecard” on how fiscally conservative Texas politicians have voted, might have lost a little of its influence in recent years. 

In the 2018 election, the PAC spent a record sum of about $5 million — nearly as much as the Republican Party of Texas spent in total that year — backing mostly candidates who lost. In this election cycle, touted by both parties as profoundly consequential, the organization has been uncharacteristically quiet. 

Data from the Texas Ethics Commission and Follow the Money show that the PAC has only doled out a pittance compared to previous years. 

The PAC has donated $22,000 to Arlington Republican Tony Tinderholt — who is best known for proposing a bill in the last legislative session that would have allowed the death penalty for women who receive an abortion — and a $1,400 donation to the Texans for Fiscal Responsibility PAC for “tax compliance consulting.”

By comparison, the organization has donated roughly $9.5 million to state and local candidates. 

Stacy Montemayor, a researcher for Follow the Money, a non-profit that tracks donations to individual campaigns, speculated the PAC could be lying low for a variety of reasons. 

“They could be waiting to flood donations into campaigns last-minute,” she said. “It might be that an angel contributor is no longer giving money to them. It could also be that the PAC has been the center of controversy and is trying to reorganize.”

Empower Texans has been at the center of two major scandals in the Texas GOP.

Empower Texans' Recent Scandals

Back in June, the Democratic Party released a statement calling on nine Republicans to return campaign money to Empower Texans. The statement came days after Empower Texans staffers were caught on tape mocking Gov. Greg Abbott for using a wheelchair. 

Earlier in the year, the organization, which state Democrats referred to as a “right-wing dark money group,” released recordings of soon-to-be former House Speaker Dennis Bonnen providing a list of 10 Republican incumbents for the conservative group Empower Texans to target in exchange for access. 

The mishap also led several top Republicans to publicly rebuke the group — including Bonnen, Paxton, and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who has taken in more than $800,000 from Empower Texans since 2014.

Empower Texans did not respond to emails and phone calls for comment on this story.

State Republican Chairman Allen West declined to comment on the PAC during a recent interview.