Super PAC adds more Texas lawmakers to target list

San Antonio Express News ^ | 8 April 2012 | Gary Martin

[Racehorse]

A Houston-based Super PAC targeting congressional incumbents from both major political parties is drawing a bead on Texas lawmakers.

The Campaign for Primary Accountability, a non-ideological political action committee, is working on behalf of underfunded challengers without the financial wherewithal to defeat entrenched incumbents.

It's part of the PAC's stated goal of educating voters and diminishing the power of incumbency.

Earlier this year, the super PAC announced its intention to help challengers defeat Democratic Reps. Silvestré Reyes of El Paso and Eddie Bernice Johnson in Dallas.

This week, the super PAC expanded its list of targets to include Republican Reps. Joe Barton of Ennis and Ralph Hall of Rockwall.

Hall is the longest serving, current Texas congressman, first elected as a Democrat before switching to the Republican Party in his East Texas district that includes Texarkana. He has served 33 years in Congress.

Barton was first elected in 1984. He's best known for using his high ranking position on the Energy and Commerce Committee for accusing President Barack Obama of a $20 billion “shakedown” of BP Amoco PLC that the company paid following the 2010 deepwater oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

The two Texas Republicans became targets of the super PAC because they are long-term incumbents, have credible challengers and, more importantly, have disgruntled constituents, said Curtis Ellis, a spokesman for Campaign for Primary Accountability.

“Our polling shows that people are dissatisfied with their current representation,” Ellis said.

The PAC is funded by several deep-pocketed donors, the largest being Houston builder Leo Linbeck III. The PAC has raised more than $1.8 billion to shake up Congress by helping defeat long-term incumbents.

[PGalt]

It’s the socialism, stupidPAC. Here is some of the damage they have done...

http://www.usdebtclock.org/

DEPOPULATE them from Congress. Start here...

http://cpc.grijalva.house.gov/

Member list, here...

http://cpc.grijalva.house.gov/index.cfm?sectionid=71&sectiontree=2,71

FOCUS

“It is impossible to introduce into society a greater change and a greater evil than this: the conversion of the law into an instrument of plunder.”

FOCUS

“I do not think that illegal plunder, such as theft or swindling — which the penal code defines, anticipates, and punishes — can be called socialism. It is not this kind of plunder that systematically threatens the foundations of society.”

FOCUS

“Above all, if you wish to be strong, begin by rooting out every particle of socialism that may have crept into your legislation. This will be no light task.”

FOCUS

(Quotes - Bastiat)

[smokingfrog]

bfl

[Ron H.]

It will be interesting to see if this effort grows any legs.

[Jukeman]

Defeat the communists at the ballot box. And it will take heaps of money and eternal vigilance to wedge out the fraudulence which keeps getting them re-elected.

[Nickname]

$1.8 billion? That’ll rattle the apple cart.

I came across this interesting bit while searching the PAC:

. . .

Eric Cantor donation roils House GOP

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor went into damage control mode Friday following the revelation that he contributed $25,000 to a super PAC devoted to defeating incumbent House members — including numerous Republicans.

The news of Cantor’s contribution to the Campaign for Primary Accountability, first reported by Roll Call Friday afternoon and confirmed by a spokesman for the super PAC, was said to have taken party leaders by surprise. House Speaker John Boehner, House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy, and National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Pete Sessions, knowledgeable aides said, had not received advance word that the contribution had been made.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0412/74926.html#ixzz1rX2OniEu