SAN ANGELO, TX — After Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s jet touches down at San Angelo’s Mathis Field Friday morning, he will be headed to the 65-seat pizza joint called Old Central Firehouse for a campaign rally with a candidate he endorsed to unseat 9-term State Representative Drew Darby of San Angelo's and Big Spring’s House District 72.
His chosen candidate is Stormy Bradley, a Coahoma ISD school board member who declared she’d join Abbott’s quest to spend tax dollars on a private school voucher program that Darby opposed. But in May of last year, Bradley was asking her friends on Facebook to call their Texas rep in a show of support to defeat the private school voucher bill during the legislative session.
In May of last year, State Rep candidate Stormy Bradley was asking her friends on Facebook to call their Texas rep and senator in a show of support for defeating the private school voucher bill during the legislative session.
Flip-flopping like John Kerry doesn’t break the law, but Texas law requires campaign finance reports to be filed in accordance with the Texas Ethics Commission. For the March 5 Primary Election, a campaign finance report was due Feb. 5. Now four days after the due date, the report has not appeared on the TEC database (as of 12:35 a.m.). With so many TV ads she’s running blasting Darby, mass text messages warning the district that Darby is a liberal, and enough direct mail to build up a fire as large as voters’ own personal Aggie bonfire, we have been curious how much all of that cost and, most importantly, who is paying for all of this?
From Bradley’s earlier, one and only finance report filed Jan. 16, we learned that she had only raised a little less than $1,400 in private donations, $25,000 from a pro-voucher PAC, and loaned her campaign $30,000. She only spent $19.13 on Winred, an online fundraising platform for collecting online donations. Prior to Jan 16, Bradley was required to pay a $700 filing fee to the Republican Party and the report shows no expense listed for creating her shiny, new website. Much of the direct mail slamming Darby for Bradley’s benefit is sent to you using money for various DC and Austin PACs, such as the AFC Victory Fund.
Negative campaign direct mail pieces tarnishing Rep Drew Darby on behalf of challenger Stormy Bradley
The snippet from the Texas Ethics Commission campaign finance report rules for the March 5, 2024 Primary Election.
The AFC Victory Fund’s campaign treasurer, Lisa Lisker, a political consultant from Alexandria, Virginia (though Virginia was marked as "Texas" on Bradley's report), was able to get that organization’s Feb. 5 finance report in order and it was published promptly by the due date. The curious thing is that Lisker is also Bradley’s campaign finance treasurer. The irony is that Bradley’s missing campaign finance report raises as many questions as why is a PAC’s treasurer the same treasurer serving on a state representative’s (Bradley’s) campaign?
Will Gov. Abbott be able to explain all this to San Angelo voters? Was it lost in the mail? And who is Lisa Lisker?
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