Bay Area Houston

Elizabeth Sanders of the Houston Chronicle wrote a very interesting article concerning a mystery PAC meddling in Houston City elections. It is well worth a read.

In short, a PAC identified as the Houston Hispanic Action Committee sent mailers out to District G voters advocating for an unknown, first time, candidate for City Council who raised only $125. The candidate received 11% of the vote and sent the race into a runoff. City Council Member Mary Nan Huffman failed to receive the 50% margin by only a few hundred votes. The PAC also advocated against Huffman incorrectly saying she endorsed Trump for reelection.

So. Who is the Houston Hispanic Action Committee (HHPAC)? No one knows but someone spent a good amount of money to help Buzbee get to a runoff. HHPAC is not registered with the Texas Ethics Commission. They did not appoint a treasurer. These are very serious violations and could result in large fines especially if it was done deliberately to influence an election. Sending out mailers was deliberate. An ethics complaint should be filed.

Unfortunately there is no contact information available for HHPAC. They had a website up until today. The domain name https://houstonhispanicaction.com was created in Sept of 2023 just in time for the election. The administrator of the domain is hidden. They had a Facebook page until today. That page is no longer active. In order to file a complaint with the Texas Ethics Commission you need contact information for the Houston Hispanic Action Committee and there is none.

According to the article the PAC used a specific printer, Long Plan Printing or LP Printing. They have declined to provide who paid for the printing but there is a way to find out. According to the Texas Ethics Commission LP Printing has received over $163,000 over the last ten years mainly from Republican candidates and organizations. Spring Republicans spent over $93,000 for services during this time period.

Sending these mailers under a fake PAC name is a serious violation of the laws governing campaigns and it should be investigated by the Harris County District Attorney’s Office or the Harris County Attorney’s office. They have the authority to issue subpoenas and find out who designed the mailers and who paid for the mailers to be sent. If this is allowed to go unpunished it could affect elections on all levels in the future.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 2nd, 2024 at 6:58 am and is filed under Political. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.