GOP Establishment's War on Tea Party Comes to Texas

The Republican establishment’s war against the Tea Party has come to Texas. According to a report in the Dallas Morning News, “Some of Texas’ biggest business trade groups are moving to counter tea party and anti-government forces that have dominated recent Republican primaries.”

The Texas Future Business Alliance, described as a “mix of 10 major business groups, including the chemical industry, bankers, builders and contractors,” is reportedly “sending out mailers and providing other support on behalf of GOP candidates” who favor more government spending and want to take on the Tea Party. 

A person involved in the Texas Future Business Alliance who refused to go on the record, said, “A lot of the business community is tired” of the Tea Party. 

Michael Quinn Sullivan, who is the president of the fiscal-hawk group Empower Texans, “said the Texas Future Business Alliance” is an “anti-Ted Cruz movement [that] is nothing but a group of big-money interests wanting taxpayer dollars to flow into their pockets.” Designating them a “fake group,” he also said they “want people who will vote for cronyism and corporate welfare.”

Though these business groups claim the Tea Party is swinging the legislature too far in their quest for fiscal conservatism, Sullivan said the notion that the Tea Party does not care about government is “ridiculous,” arguing that they only want hard-earned taxpayer dollars spent prudently. 

On the national level, groups like the Chamber of Commerce have indicated they are about to spend $50 million to try to destroy the Tea Party, largely because the Tea Party opposes amnesty for illegal immigrants and the corporations that have broken federal immigration laws to hire them. Karl Rove, who has his fingers in Texas politics, is reloading against the Tea Party on the national level as well. Furthermore, groups like former Rep. Steven LaTourette’s (R-OH) Main Street Partnership are so hell-bent on destroying the Tea Party that the legality of their activities is being called into question.

Breitbart News’s Brandon Darby, a Texan, addressed this on Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot channel 125 with host and Breitbart News Executive Chairman Stephen K. Bannon. He said the institutional left’s efforts to turn Texas purple or blue will only be aided by moderate establishment Republicans like the Texas Future Business Alliance’s efforts to undermine conservatives.