June 25, 2010

The 10 Most Powerful Texas Democrats
Who Aren't Elected or Running for Office

By Mike Hailey
Capitol Inside Editor

CORPUS CHRISTI - While party leaders, elected officials and activists were gathering at the coast for the biennial state Democratic Convention, Houston lawyers Steve Mostyn and Chad Dunn were demonstrating in their own unique ways why they are two of the most influential Democrats in Texas.

Mostyn, who's specialized in recent years as an attorney for property owners in battles with insurance companies over hurricane claims, was identified as a major source of funding for a new political action committee that paid for a television ad that blasts Governor Rick Perry for the high-dollar private mansion where he's been living for a coupler of years at state expense. The ad that was produced by the Back to Basics PAC accuses the Republican incumbent of living a life of luxury at the same time he's dropping the state budget ax on nursing homes, pre-kindergarten programs and higher education.

The new TV spot, which started running Thursday night in the Houston, Dallas and Austin markets, doesn't mention Mostyn or the fact that he's a partner with one of Perry's best friends and allies in a horse racing track. Phil Adams, a Texas A&M University regent who's been a major contributor to Perry, and Mostyn are part of a group of investors that acquired the Lone Star Park in Grand Prairie.

Before the anti-Perry ad hit the airways, Dunn and the Democrats were celebrating a legal victory in Austin where a state district judge blocked the Green Party from the November general election ballot in Texas. Dunn, a personal injury attorney who doubles as general counsel for the Texas Democratic Party, had secured the ruling after arguing that the Green Party's petition drive for a spot on the ballot had been funded by illegal corporate cash and initiated by an Austin lobbyist who's a former Perry chief of staff.

Dunn, who's been touted as a potential future state Democratic Party chairman, like Mostyn hasn't always associated exclusively with Democrats. A former member of the law firm that was run by the late Houston trial lawyer John O'Quinn, Dunn worked for Republican U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison in Washington before serving as an aide to State Rep. Dawnna Dukes of Austin and State Senator Rodney Ellis of Houston.

As Democrats prepare to christen Bill White's campaign to unseat Perry when the former Houston mayor delivers the keynote speech tonight at the state convention, Dunn and Mostyn are easy choices for a list that Capitol Inside has compiled of the 10 Texans who arguably wield the most sway in Democratic politics here and beyond when elected officials and candidates aren't included in the mix. Here they are listed in alphabetical order:

Naomi Aberly - As the chairman of the board at Annie's List and one of the group's largest donors, Aberly oversees a group that's contributed more money to Democratic candidates in Texas in recent years than any organization that's not funded exclusively by trial lawyers. Annie's List has played a key role in electing a significant number of Democratic candidates who are women to legislative and local offices - and Aberly is a big reason why the group has had so much cash to spend since its inception in 2003. Aberly, who's donated several hundred thousand dollars to the Texas Democratic Trust as well, is a Detroit native who moved to Dallas after graduating from Amherst College to take a job in the retail industry with Neiman Marcas. She gravitated into the political arena after going to work as a volunteer at the North Texas chapter of Planned Parenthood before eventually ascending to the job as the chairman of the non-profit group's board of direcrtors. She raised significant sums of money for Barack Obama and now she's doing the same for Bill White in his campaign for governor.

Matt Angle - The most powerful Democrat in Texas of all with the possible exception of Bill White himself and two or three lawmakers is probably Matt Angle, a Washington-based political operative who was the chief political advisor to Martin Frost of Dallas when he was one of the highest ranking Democrats in Congress. While the Texas Democratic Party during the late 1990s and early 2000s sought the blessings of then-House Speaker Pete Laney and Frost before major decisions were made, Angle has emerged in recent years as the person who's perceived to have more control over the party in Texas than anyone else since Boyd Richie took over as state chairman in 2006. While Angle doesn't exactly control the state party's purse strings, he became the conduit for the lion's share of cash that's funded the organization in the past five years as the designated intermediary of Dallas trial lawyer legend Fred Baron before cancer killed him in 2008. Baron, who'd accumulated vast wealth as the lead attorney in asbestos class action lawsuits, had delegated all of the decision-making authority he'd earned as the state party's number one contributor by far to Angle. A Texas native, Angle is the executive director for a support organization called the Texas Democratic Trust, which has provided about two-thirds of the state party operations while providing significant sums of cash to affiliated groups. But Angle is also a top-notch strategist who's greatest strength is arguably his ability to attack Republicans, which he does frequently as the leader of a related group called the Lone Star Project. Angle in the assortment of roles he plays has been a major force in the gains that Democrats have made on the Texas House battlefield in the past two election cycles.

Lisa Blue Baron - There'd been speculation when Fred Baron passed away on whether the Democratic Party in Texas could survive without the massive infusions of money he'd been giving it. But another Dallas trial lawyer has stepped up to take up a significant amount of the slack - and the connection is more than tenuous. Lisa Blue, a former Dallas County prosecutor who uses a doctorate that she earned in psychology for a side practice as an expert in forensics and jury selection, has given more than $1 million to the Texas Democratic Trust that funds the state party organization since her husband died less than two years ago. Baron's widow, who's had to overcome dyslexia, has been recognized as one of the nation's top women litigators since leaving the district attorney's office for a job as a personal injury attorney in toxic tort case. From early indications, Blue Baron has taken her late husband and former law partner's place as far as the Democratic Party's lifeblood in Texas is concerned.

Ben Barnes - Some things never change, and the massive sway that Ben Barnes has wielded in Democratic politics at the state and national level over the course of the past half-century is an ideal example. Barnes, who still has the boyish grin and bushy red hair at age 72, won a seat in the Texas House when he was a 21-year-old student at the University of Texas - and he became the youngest speaker in state history when he was elected to the leadership post six years later in 1965. Barnes had turned 30 by the time he was elected lieutenant governor in 1968 - and a lot of Texans had predicted that his political path would lead all the way to the presidency before it ended abruptly when he lost a bid for governor in 1972 as an innocent victim of the Sharpstown scandal. Since leaving politics for a career as a lobbyist and deal-maker, Barnes has helped elect countless numbers of Democrats in races from the statehouse to the White House as one of the party's most prolific fundraisers and hasn't appeared to be slowing down as a senior citizen. Barnes has crossed party lines to support old friends like Kay Bailey Hutchison and Carole Keeton Strayhorn, but the role he continues to play in Democratic politics is immeasurable.

Alonzo Cantu - A former migrant farm worker who made a fortune in construction and real estate before he started buying banks, hospitals and other businesses, Alonzo Cantu of McAllen is the number one Hispanic power broker in Texas. Cantu has donated millions of dollars to Democratic candidates and committees at the state and federal level - and he was one of Hillary Clinton's biggest bundlers of campaign cash during her race for president two years ago. Thanks in large part to Cantu's relationship with the Clinton family, a $40 million rural economic development was established in the Rio Grande Valley by the federal government when Bill Clinton was president. Cantu's generosity and contacts have paid off in other forms of government assistance that's credited with economic expansion and job growth in one of the state's most impoverished areas.

Chad Dunn - After major victories at the courthouse in battles with Republicans who'd been beating up on the Democrats at the polls year after year, Houston attorney Chad Dunn has the potential to be the next Charles Soechting for the Democratic Party in Texas. Soechting, a partner in the law firm where Dunn used to work, served for several years as the state party's top lawyer before winning the chairman's job in late 2003 and keeping it for more than two years. If Dunn is really interested in leading the state party in Texas, he might have put himself on the fast track with an Oscar-level performance in the hearing that knocked the Green Party off the ballot this fall. Dunn had scored his first big win as the TDP general counsel three years ago when the state party sued and won in a bid to prevent the Texas GOP from replacing Tom DeLay on the ballot after he'd resigned from Congress under a cloud of criminal charges and cancelled his re-election campaign. While the lawyers for the Republicans argued that the GOP had the legal right to pick a replacement nominee for the former U.S. House majority leader because he'd moved to Virginia and was ineligible for a Texas congressional race as a result, a federal judge sided with Dunn and the Democrats instead. The GOP, as a result, couldn't field a candidate for the 2006 general election that Democrat Nick Lampson ended up winning in a heavily Republican district that year.

Becky Moeller - While organized labor doesn't exert as much clout in Democratic politics here as it did before a lot of blue collars workers started voting Republican, Texas AFL-CIO President Becky Moeller has boosted the visibility of the state's largest union organization in its role as a political player. Moeller, for example, stole a sliver of thunder from the state Republican convention in Dallas two weeks ago with a press conference where she pounded Governor Rick Perry over the relative high cost of the rental home where he's living in west Austin while the Governor's Mansion is being repaired after a fire almost destroyed it in 2008. There are very few endorsements that Democratic candidates covet more than those that Moeller's group bestows.

Steve Mostyn - The current president-elect of the Texas Trial Lawyer's Association has emerged in the past few years as one of the Democrat's largest contributors in the state. But Mostyn, who's donated several hundred thousand dollars to the trial lawyer-funded Texans for Insurance Reform PAC and similar amounts to the House Democratic Campaign Committee, hasn't been content to just sit back and write checks like most major political givers. Mostyn has been an activist contributor who's been getting involved in the trenches like he has with the group that cut the ad about Governor Perry's private rental quarters. When an insurance reform package that Republican lawmakers were pushing in 2009 began to hit snags that threatened to cause it to unravel, they pointed to Mostyn as the chief instigator behind moves by Democrats to hijack the legislation if they didn't simply find a way to kill it. Mostyn's foray into the racetrack business would seem to have the potential to make a big difference in the Democrats' decision on whether they will rally behind gambling expansion proposals at the Capitol next year and how much time and energy they invest in that effort.

Russ Tidwell - A former Texas House member who served less than one full term in the mid-1980s, Russ Tidwell is a registered lobbyist who's been the political point person for the Texas Trial Lawyers Association for most of the past two decades. Tidwell had a seat at the main table when the state party's major decisions were being made when the private attorneys who represented the state in the tobacco lawsuit were funding Democratic politics in Texas - and that didn't change when Baron stepped into their place several years ago. Democratic candidates who hope to have the trial lawyer's help for campaigns must go through Tidwell - and those who don't have his approval can simply forget about that.

Alexa Wesner - A Virginia native who moved to Austin in the mid-1990s for a job with a high-tech start-up venture, Alexa Wesner eventually started an executive recruiting firm for the city's rapidly expanding computer industry and was involved in the arts as in a volunteer capacity before the political bug bit her as one of Barack Obama's original fans in the Lone Star State. Wesner, a Westlake Hills resident who's married to a partner in the investment firm Austin Ventures, traveled the country raising money for Obama after he entered the competition for president. By early 2008 she'd created a political action committee called Blue Texas that spent close to $1 million on legislative races that year. There's speculation now that Wesner is in line for an appointment from the president as the U.S. ambassador to a foreign nation - and she appears to be in position to be fairly selective about where that eventual possible destination will be if it materializes.