Conservative "Outsiders" Have Inside Track in Texas

[w8liftinglady]

http://www.texastribune.org/texas-legislature/texas-legislature/conservative-outsiders-have-inside-track-in-texas/

His nickname around the Texas Capitol is “mucus.”

It’s a play on Michael Quinn Sullivan’s initials — MQS — but the moniker is fitting on at least two levels: It underscores how much of an irritant the conservative activist has become to politicians who dare buck his Tea Party orthodoxy. It also says something about Sullivan’s staying power in Republican-ruled Texas.

They can’t get rid of him.

“He’s had a tremendous influence on some of my colleagues,” said longtime state Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston. “I’ve got to commend him. He’s whipped it up pretty successfully to make himself appear to be much more of a power than I think he really is in terms of delivering votes to or against somebody in an election.”

Sullivan is by no means the only conservative partisan in Austin. But the 6-foot-4 Eagle Scout has emerged as the most recognizable face of a new brand of grassroots activists, emboldened by the success of the Tea Party movement and not afraid to rock the boat. They have been loosely described — bitterly in many quarters — as “outside groups” that have driven so much of the budget-slashing agenda in the waning 2011 session of the Texas Legislature.

Sullivan presides over some of the most influential ones: Empower Texans and Texans for Fiscal Responsibility, the latter of which has spawned a political action committee that makes campaign donations, mostly to conservative Republicans. In 2009, the former paid Sullivan $100,000, about a quarter of its budget, IRS disclosures show. The two organizations operate together as a relatively seamless political advocacy outfit that generally blasts any politician (typically the “moderate” Republicans) who strays from the notion that the only solution to the state’s fiscal woes is spending cuts — the deeper the better.

The intellectual underpinning for them is the Texas Public Policy Foundation, the influential conservative think tank where Sullivan once served as spokesman and vice president. Modeled after the Heritage Foundation in Washington, the Texas foundation was created by Dr. James Leininger, who made a fortune in the medical-products industry and has been showering conservative Republicans with his largesse for decades.