Craig James has made it official, and his name now appears on the list of Republican candidates which have filed.
James now has 12 days to raise money for Q4. Anything less than a million dollars and he’s not a serious candidate.
Can’t find an official website yet; I’ll post it when I do.
A week ago it looked like the race was on both sides. Now things have gotten very interesting indeed…
A few quick updates for things too important to sit on over the weekend:
I know this may comes as a shock to some of you, seeing as how I occasionally write about sports for my other blog, but I don’t have cable, and thus have no first-hand experience of Craig James’ ESPN broadcasting prowess.
However, news of James’ possible Senate candidacy has been racing around the worlds of both politics and sports, and from the commentary there, I think it safe to assert that James is not universally loved:
The same liberal bitterness over any public Republican figure? Maybe, but I’m not getting that vibe reading the comments. And hard-core liberals don’t usually hang out at Big Government.
More James news:
So says The Dallas Morning News, citing “sources close to his developing campaign.”
I don’t know why he would. I don’t see a lot of running room (no pun intended), it will be very hard to raise money, it’s been a long time since James was top of the football heap, and ESPN analyst is probably not a high-enough profile job for the requisite level of fame you’d need to win the race jumping in this late. And he’s not nearly rich enough to self-fund like David Dewhurst (unless the pre-death penalty SMU football program was even more generous with athlete payouts than we’ve been lead to realize).
If he does get in, he probably hurts Tom Leppert the most, due to the same geographic base in the Metroplex.
Looking over the list of Republican candidates who had filed for the Senate race, I was surprised to see the name of former Court of Criminal Appeals judge Charles Holcomb of Wimberley, who was age-limited out of the office. Despite searching, I was unable to find any campaign website for Judge Holcomb.
So I called him up.
Judge Holcomb was gracious enough to talk a few minutes about why he was running:
BattleSwarm Blog thanks Judge Holcomb for his time.
It takes a while for the FEC to put up the list of individual donations (even longer than putting up the summary reports), so I didn’t think to check out David Dewhurst’s individual contributions until this week. One thing that jumped out at me from the report was just how many donations he got from lawyers at Fulbright & Jaworski.
Fulbright & Jaworski ranked 52 overall on the Vault list of the top 100 law firms in the U.S., and fourth in the energy sector. The Jaworksi in the name comes from Watergate prosecutor Leon Jaworski. They’re headquartered in Houston but have offices worldwide. They’re generally considered one of the three biggest law firms in Houston, the other two being Baker Botts and Vinson & Elkins.
From the FEC, here are the donations Dewhurst received from Fulbright & Jaworski employees for his senate race (presented in the same format provided by the FEC, both for authenticity, and because I’m too lazy to reformat them):
I actually offer this up as more of a data point than a “gotcha.” While some Fulbright & Jaworski lawyers have been involved in liberal causes (like representing detained terrorists at Guantanamo Bay), 71% of their political donations have gone to Republicans. Fulbright & Jaworski seems to have done a lot of work for Dewhurst’s company Falcon Seaboard. (The Howard Wolf listed above is actually a retired partner for Fulbright & Jaworsk, as he’s currently President and Acting Chairman of Falcon Seaboard, has been appointed to several state boards, and is one of Dewhurst’s closest confidants.) Indeed, Dewhurst’s ties to the company are so extensive that he was he was willing to do this video taking about how awesome they are:
(I was also surprised to find an old high school classmate in the same video…)
Although they haven’t officially been put up yet, Quorum Report has obtained the personal financial disclosure report the U.S. Senate requires for David Dewhurst, Ted Cruz, Tom Leppert and Ricardo Sanchez. According to the Statesman, Dewhurst’s wealth adds up to some $225 million, quite a formidable amount (I suspect that myself and many of my readers could be quite content for 1/100th of that), but not quite the billionaire some had tagged him as.
Tom Leppert clocked in at $12 million (nice, but an order of magnitude less than Dewhurst) and Ted Cruz came in at just under $1 million. Ricardo Sanchez had a net worth of $212,009, but that was probably before his recent house fire.
A little bird was kind enough to provide me a copy of Dewhurst’s report, and I wanted to take note of a few tidbits.
Under income, Dewhurst lists his salary from the State of Texas at $61,119. The Lieutenant Governor’s base salary, as set by the Texas Constitution, is $7,200, though actual pay varies somewhat depending on which days he acts as the acting governor. I find it ironic that if I wanted to be Lieutenant Governor, I’d have to take a significant pay cut. Still, I bet the benefits are pretty awesome…
Dewhurst’s biggest wealth comes in the form of holdings in Falcon Seaboard, the energy and investment company he founded and for which he owns (according to the report) 97.38%. His report lists assets to the tune of over $50 million in Falcon Diversified and $25–50 million in Falcon Seaboard Investment Company, plus over $50 million in a blind trust. He also listed a receivable note from them in the $1–5 million range, as well as a promissory note (i.e. loan) from them in the $5–25 million range. Plus various other Falcon Seaboard-related investments and income.
Next comes Section IIIA, Publicly traded assets and unearned income sources, which lists the companies Dewhurst owns shares of stock in. Among those he has listed as owning shares worth between $100,000–250,000:
Stocks he holds $50,001-100,000 in are:
There are also lesser amounts of stock in Section IIIB, non-publicly traded assets and unearned income sources, which are presumably either in trusts or retirement accounts. (I am neither a lawyer nor an accountant.) I’m not clear if all Mr. Dewhurst’s stock holdings are inside or outside of his blind trust, or some other arrangement. My quick impression is that, blind trust or not, that’s an awful lot of foreign corporations for an American politician to have investments in.
Other tidbits:
That’s not a very blind trust. Indeed, about the trust, the report says “Mr. Dewhurst is the 100% beneficiary of the David Dewhurst Blind Trust which is a grantor trust for tax purposes. The trust is NOT considered a blind trust.” Que?
I’ll be happy to link to Dewhurst’s report (as well as those of the other candidates) when they’re publicly available.
Another Senate race roundup
