TCAN

TCAN, as a member of Clean Elections Texas, a collaborative effort of several statewide and national organizations, is launching an effort to bring the issue of Publicly Financed Elections before the Texas State Democratic Party Convention by initiating the presentation of Clean Election resolutions at the precinct convention level statewide in the upcoming March […]

The ‘pay to play’ game where you and your dollars decide which Presidential candidates stay on the island, um, errr, ballot, and who gets kicked off!

Here’s how it works.

Cultivate the feeling of a powerful mega-donor by deciding which presidential candidates you would like to ‘take out’ of the running.

Then, kinda like mega-donors do […]

Gov. Rick Perry recently appointed a new Secretary of State to replace former SOS Roger Williams, who had resigned to “pursue other opportunities.” Phil Wilson, a former deputy chief of staff to the governor, took office at the beginning of this month, after assuring Sen. Kirk Watson (D-Austin) that, as the state’s top elections […]

We recently met with CE enthusiasts from Dallas who have spoken with a number of CE advocates across the country. Along with the contacts TCAN has made, we should soon have a pretty good idea of what has worked and what hasn’t worked.
We’ll be working with this group and others as we build our […]

Watch the Senate debate here.
This will be a great place to learn the sound bites we can expect in Texas as our own Clean Elections campaign gets traction.
Clean Elections is a way to run without having to court corporate interests. Candidates qualify by getting a reasonable number of small donations. Once qualified, they get […]

Thanks in large part to YOUR actions, we can count some real victories during this legislative session. No, we didn’t get all the things we hoped and worked for in the areas of ethics reform, campaign finance reform, redistricting reform, and election reform, but we got considerably more than almost anyone expected. Most importantly, […]

The Texas House of Representatives has always been known as the people’s house. The Speaker of the House is supposed to preside over the meetings of the House in a fair and equitable manner. This Speaker has not been fair and equitable.
As the legislative session drew to a close over this long weekend, Representatives from […]

I am adding my 2 cents worth to what Stewart has already told you about our True Courage Awards event Thursday night. It was truly an exciting event for all the TCAN board members, staff and supporters, and I know especially for our honorees. Much hard work goes into a legislative session by the legislators and their staff. TCAN worked to apply the same amount of energy to fight for and against the bills that impacted our legislative agenda this year. Ethics reform, voting rights, open government and the politics of big money were where we worked tirelessly, found our champions among the legislators, and accomplished much, but much remains to be accomplished.

I want to thank the many members of the legislature and their staff from both the House and the Senate that came and joined us at this fun event, and give another thanks to Ms. Bettie Naylor for hosting this at the Westgate

This event was a time for recognition, celebration and renewed commitment to continue our work together in the future. Everyone was full of smiles and good feelings and that was rewarding for all of us to see.

that they weren’t heroes, that other people contributed more, that they were just doing what they thought they had to do.
But the winners of the True Courage Action Awards:
Best State Senator: Sen. Rodney Ellis
Best State Representative: Rep. Mike Villarreal
Best State Advocate: ACLU of Texas
(represented by Will Harrell, Sonia Santana, and Kat Dean )
Defending Voting […]

Here are the latest results of the True Courage Awards poll as of Friday noon:

State Senator
Current vote

Ellis
30%

Shapleigh
28%

Gallegos
18%

Watson
14%

Wentworth
10%

.
.

State Representative
Current vote

Villarreal
34%

Thompson
21%

Bolton
20%

Anchia
15%

Burnam
9%

.
.

State Advocate
Current vote

American Civil Liberties Union
34%

Texas Progressive Blogs
28%

People for the American Way
17%

Advocacy, Inc.
13%

Texas Election Reform Coalition
8%

.
Poll closes May 20th at noon. VOTE! here