By Rita Cook
Texas Metro News
https://texasmetronews.com
AUSTIN – Let’s talk about power moves and the people who make them in Austin that will be changing very much come the November election.
There has been much discussion about the Texas Senate Race and who will be heading to Washington D.C.
On the Democratic side we have current Texas House of Representative’s candidate James Talarico. He has been in the Texas House since 2018.
Talarico ran in the March primary against his strongest contender Jasmine Crockett who is currently serving in the 30th Congressional seat in D.C.
Talarico won for a number of reasons that have already been debated so I won’t go into here. The real question is can he beat current U.S. senator John Cornyn or current Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton depending on which one of those wins the primary runoff in May.
Since politics are changing and hopefully the voters are paying more attention, two big questions are often being repeated.
Which one of these candidates will push for term limits because it is obvious it is needed and even more obvious why politicians get amnesia after they win and forget the constituents are asking them to make happen.
The other question is the lobbyist issue.
How much are each of these candidates sucking up – particularly from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and other Israel PACS – because in a lot of cases that is exactly how the politician will vote. It is a lucrative business and most politicians get amnesia again once elected regarding doing away with lobbyists and PACS.
I researched Talarico to see how much money he has taken from PACS overall.
Here is what Track AIPAC recently reported on him https://www.trackaipac.com/james-talarico while in the Texas State Legislature.
Talarico voted in in favor of SB 326 a 2025 bill requiring schools to use IHRA definition of antisemitism to crack down on anti-Israel free speech and solidarity with Palestine.
He voted in favor of SB 2872, which was a bill from the 2025 legislative session, debated largely as a response to campus demonstrations in Texas, including those related to Israel/Palestine issues at universities in 2024 and 2025. The bill itself did not directly legislate on Israel policy, it regulated how expressive activities like protests are managed at public institutions.
His apparent current positions are to support banning offensive weapons transfer but he does support funding “defensive weapons” for Israel.
He has not acknowledged Israel’s actions in Gaza as genocide, but he has accused Israel of committing war crimes.
He sent a letter regarding Israel-Palestine in which he affirmed he will continue to support Israel as a Jewish state and then he sent a letter to the Texas Muslim community regarding Israel-Palestine in which he affirmed his support for a two-state solution.
In January The Texas Tribune reported Talarico had raised $6.8 million worth of contributions and added “Most of Talarico’s donations — 98% — were for $100 or less and none came from corporate PACs, according to the campaign.”
That seemed to be inaccurate information by February however when The Texas Tribune published https://www.texastribune.org/2026/02/20/texas-senate-dark-money-superpacs-talarico-hunt-crockett-paxton-cornyn/ that noted “A super PAC supporting one of the Democratic candidates, James Talarico, reported $6.1 million in contributions from Jan. 1 through Feb. 11. But more than half that came from a political action committee that was entirely funded by a dark money group on its last monthly report.”
Politico reported last August https://www.politico.com/news/2025/08/21/james-talarico-miriam-adelson-billionaire-donations-00517288 “Texas Democrat James Talarico has built a national profile railing against GOP billionaires in politics — but has quietly accepted funds from a PAC backed by one of the wealthiest donors in the Republican Party.”
The single biggest donor to Talarico’s state House reelection bid last year was a group funded by casino mogul Miriam Adelson, according to state campaign finance data.
From the GOP side, Track AIPAC has reported the current senator Cornyn has taken money totaling $2,086,416 from the Israel Lobby
The same Texas Tribune article referring to “dark money” reported on the GOP side “The reports for the super PACs backing Cornyn and Paxton were more revealing of individual donors (than was Talarico’s donors). The pro-Cornyn super PAC, for example, reported $2.9 million in funding from Houston businessman John Nau. The top individual donor to the pro-Paxton super PAC was Midland oilman Douglas Scharbauer, who gave $250,000. Both have given large amounts to the respective super PACs before.
As for Paxton, you can read his donors at https://www.opensecrets.org/officeholders/ken-paxton-jr/contributors?cycle=2022&id=6599313&recs=100 from 2022 that offer a wide range of names. Right or left, look at the lobbyists, the PACS and the donors for each candidate before voting in in the GOP runoff and the November election. With that list you can well figure out the exact loyalty each candidate will have in their votes if they make it to D.C.
