Texans for Public Justice’s true nature is relevant because they’ve launched an ethics broadside against Texas Gov. Rick Perry on the eve of the next presidential debate, and that attack is getting picked up as if it’s not coming from a partisan hothouse. Despite their attempts to masquerade as non-partisan watchdogs, Texans for Public Justice are Democrat partisans funded by a variety of far left outfits. PJ alum Jennifer Rubin cites TPJ uncritically in a post at her Washington Post blog today, but doesn’t go into who or what is behind the group. So, allow me.
I touched on Texans for Public Justice last year in my expose of how the Texas Democrats hope to use false front groups like TPJ to tear down the state’s Republican leadership, and regain the power that the voters have repeatedly chosen not to give them over the last two decades.
Because of his position as the Texas Democratic Party’s shadow chairman, [Lone Star Project head Matt] Angle exerts a great deal of influence over several left-wing groups across Texas, some of which pass themselves off as non-partisan. Among those is Texans for Public Justice, a group that claims to be interested in “tracking the influence of money and corporate power in Texas politics.” That interest is decidedly one-way: TPJ never takes on Democrat operatives like Angle, and in media hit after media hit, is always on his side. This makes sense when you take a look at who funds TPJ: Open Society Institute (George Soros, whose fortune also directly funds candidates even at the local level in Texas) and the Tides Foundation (Teresa Heinz-Kerry, among many others). Scratch the surface of most “nonpartisan watchdogs” in your state and you’ll probably find the same money sources, and perhaps a similar network of activists and groups. They are Soros’ “Shadow Party.” TPJ is a left-wing front masquerading as a nonpartisan watchdog.Somehow the mainstream media in Texas consistently misses the fact that TPJ never takes on Democrats, about anything, ever. Ditto for “non-partisan” groups like the Texas Freedom Network (founded and run by Cecilia Richards, daughter of the late acerbic Democratic Gov. Ann Richards) and the Texas Values in Action Coalition (TEXVAC), both of which have been very active in the 2009-2010 election cycle dredging up and amplifying attacks on Republicans, which then get major interest from the mainstream media.
The Angle operation hunts as a pack. It starts when Angle and his operatives manufacture an ethical charge against a vulnerable Republican. The allied groups, Texans for Public Justice, TEXVAC, and Back to Basics PAC, generate a flurry of press releases decrying the evil Republican. Mainstream media dutifully reports and amplifies the charge, quoting the spokesmen with the furrowed brows at the Angle-allied groups. A Democratic candidate, funded and controlled by an Angle ally, Houston multimillionaire trial lawyer Steve Mostyn, waits in the wings while the Republican crashes and burns.
Two seconds at their site gives away the fact that TPJ are sharply partisan, and mostly an anti-Perry hate group. Texas is thick with these groups, which we’ll hear more and more from as long as Perry is in the campaign. They’re funded by everyone from George Soros (TPJ gets money from his Open Society group) to trial lawyers who oppose tort reform, like Houston trial lawyer Steve Mostyn. They’ll use their Texas location to attack Perry and the Texas record, and most journalists and bloggers from outside the state will probably assume that, since they’re based in Texas, they must know what they’re talking about. The question that needs to be asked, though, is what are these groups really up to.
They’re not about good governance. They’re not non-partisan. They exist to bring about liberal electoral success. Nothing more, and nothing less. Everything they say and do should be seen as partisan, because that’s what it is.
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