Having served less than a full term in office, Crenshaw has already taken over $440,000 from corporate PACs over the course of his political career
The Big Money 20 campaign focuses on defeating incumbents who represent a rigged Washington establishment that puts corporate special interests ahead of voters’ needs
End Citizens United (ECU) today named Congressman Dan Crenshaw (TX-02) to the Big Money 20, the group’s top incumbents to defeat in 2020. ECU’s Big Money 20 campaign is focused on defeating incumbents who are rigging the system to benefit themselves, their donors, and the corrupt establishment. The group will show voters how members of Congress, like Dan Crenshaw, benefit from the influence of Big Money.
“Dan Crenshaw ran on the promise to beat back the pharmaceutical industry when elected. Then, he got to Washington and started raking in money from Big Pharma,” said ECU President Tiffany Muller. “After less than six months in office, Crenshaw caved to the pharmaceutical lobby and then pushed a bill that was more favorable to Big Pharma than to his voters, one of the many industries that bankrolls his campaign. Wall Street, the private prison industry, and Big Tobacco have all influenced Crenshaw’s voting record, and Texans are left to pay the price. Meanwhile, Sima Ladjevardian rejects corporate PAC money and is fighting to root out corruption in Washington. We’ll make sure Dan Crenshaw is defeated in November.”
End Citizens United aims to educate voters about the Big Money 20 and rally support for reforming the political system. The members of the Big Money 20 are incumbents who take money from corporate special interests, mega-donors, and industries like Big Pharma and Wall Street, and then put those interests ahead of their constituents.
Dan Crenshaw has worked against Texans since the day he was sworn into office, consistently putting the needs of corporate special interests ahead of those he was elected to represent. He reversed his position on fighting the pharmaceutical industry to lower the cost of prescription drugs for Texas families almost immediately after he was elected, and instead supported efforts that favored Big Pharma while Texans continued rationing or entirely forgoing necessary medications. As he received tens of thousands of dollars from Wall Street, Crenshaw attempted to weaken protections for consumers in legislation that ultimately benefited the financial industry. After voting to expand private detention of undocumented immigrants, Crenshaw took thousands from the private prison industry, taking more money from this industry than almost any other member of Congress this election cycle. Lobbyists from Big Tobacco contributed to Crenshaw’s campaign, and he voted against a bill that prohibited flavored vaping products, an effort that aimed to stop the youth tobacco epidemic after companies used flavorings to market tobacco to children.
Dan Crenshaw also has a shameful background when it comes to protecting voting rights for millions of Texans. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, Crenshaw used his position in Congress to spread misinformation about vote by mail efforts. Crenshaw went as far as ridiculing concerns about in-person voting, calling them “nonsense,” and stating that if people can go to a grocery store, they can vote in person. This out-of-touch response has the potential to put thousands of lives at risk. In alignment with conspiracy theories spewed by Donald Trump, Crenshaw made ignorant remarks in an attempt to differentiate absentee voting from universal mail-in voting, claiming the latter was “vulnerable to abuse and mistakes,” even though they are the same exact thing. In office, Crenshaw voted against the Voting Rights Advancement Act (H.R. 4), a bill that protects against voter suppression, and claimed that voter suppression is “one of the strangest falsehoods ever perpetuated by the Democratic Party.” Re-electing Dan Crenshaw means allowing him to further line his pockets with money from corporate special interests and threaten Texans’ right to vote.
In the 2018 cycle, End Citizens United helped defeat or retire 82% of the Big Money 20 targets. ECU will connect its more than 550,000 donors to endorsed candidates who are challenging Big Money 20 targets.
ECU has conducted extensive polling and research showing that voters across the political spectrum support getting Big Money out of politics. ECU is a traditional political action committee (PAC) with more than four million members, including 5,200 in TX-02. The reform group raised and spent $44 million last cycle, and is entirely grassroots-funded with an average donation of just $14. For a full list and additional background on the Big Money 20, click here.
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