Purchasing Access: Examining the GEO Group's Texas Political Expenditures

National Public Radio recently ran a story about how private prison companies helped write Arizona's controversial statute (currently being litigated in federal court) requiring local police to arrest and detain illegal immigrants. Private prison companies' interest in immigration law should come as little surprise for Grits readers: Nearly five years ago I wrote that the potential for expanded detention of illegal immigrants appeared virtually "limitless,"and this blog has long lamented the extra costs to county jails from such policies.

The NPR story inspired me this a.m. to look more closely at private prisons' political influence in Texas, and I plan to follow up with additional, related posts in the coming weeks. A 2006 public policy report (pdf) from the Institute on Money in State Politics identified Texas pols as the second largest recipient of private prison political spending after Florida.

The three big players in Texas' market are the GEO Group, Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), and a company called Management and Training Corporation (MTC) out of Utah. Of the three, only the GEO Group operates a state-level PAC in Texas. CCA and MTC's contributions appear to come mainly from individuals associated with the company, which are a bit more time consuming to track, so let's start with the Geo Group.

I went through the contribution reports for the Texas Geo Group Inc. PAC for this last election cycle and compiled a list of all Texas House and Senate members who both a) received contributions from GEO in 2009 and/or 2010 and b) won their elections and will be in the Legislature next year. Read the list, with totals combined from multiple reports on Grits For Breakfast