04.08.13
The Texas Lesters
The Lesters, as Lawrence Lessig has described them, are the very wealthy that finance campaigns.
Once upon a time, there was a place called Lesterland. Now Lesterland looks a lot like the United States. Like the United States, it has about 311 million people, and of that 311 million people, it turns out 144,000 are called Lester. If Matt’s in the audience, I just borrowed that, I’ll return it in a second, this character from your series. So 144,000 are called Lester, which means about .05 percent is named Lester. Now, Lesters in Lesterland have this extraordinary power. There are two elections every election cycle in Lesterland. One is called the general election. The other is called the Lester election. And in the general election, it’s the citizens who get to vote, but in the Lester election, it’s the Lesters who get to vote. And here’s the trick. In order to run in the general election, you must do extremely well in the Lester election. You don’t necessarily have to win, but you must do extremely well. [Emphasis added]
Today’s report released by Texans for Public Justice points out who the Texas Lesters are and how they’ve profited from our state government over the years. Texas GOP and Its Big Three Bag Enterprise-Fund Millions.
The Republican Party of Texas and three state politicians who control the Texas Enterprise Fund (TEF) collected $5.3million in political money from donors affiliated with $307 million in Enterprise Fund grants.
An analysis of 106 Enterprise Fund awardees finds that political committees, executives or investors associated with 38 state-funded projects contributed $3.6 million since 2000 to Governor Rick Perry, Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst and House Speaker Joe Straus—the very officials who oversee TEF. TEF-linked contributors gave almost $1.7million more to the Republican Party of Texas
With a budget that passed the House last week that is far from what’s needed, this shows who is really benefitting from our current political system - the Texas Lesters.