Our crack research team spent months scouring page after page of public documents to report the truth.
Now It's Time To Name Names!
That's right folks, we followed the money, and we've EXPOSED "Republicans" who have accepted
money from the Trial Lawyers...
If it acts like a shark, and looks like a shark, it's a shark!
Download EXPOSED 1.0, our first at-a-glimpse look at who took the bait and may be doing the Trial Lawyers bidding...
Can't see the FlashPaper to the right? Click here to download PDF.
Press Accounts / Media
Texans For Texas is committed to finding liberal personal injury trial lawyers who are trying to influence conservative legislators. Read press accounts of how we are fighting the good fight! >>>
Capitol Inside Conservative Group Using Shark Watch Report to Warn Activists on GOP ties to Trial Lawyers
by Mike Hailey
[ARTICLE EXCERPT] - Janelle Shepard may be the new Grover Norquist on the state level in Texas if she can convince a significant number of Texas lawmakers to sign a pledge to distance themselves from plaintiff trial lawyers such as the five private attorneys who represented the state in the tobacco lawsuit a decade ago.
Before circulating the new pledge to state House and Senate members next week, however, the Weatherford nurse will be handing out copies of a new report that attempts to build a case on why conservative Republicans should be alarmed about an alleged infiltration of trial lawyers into GOP politics in Texas.
Published by Shepard's grassroots group Texans for Texas, the slick 19-page report features a picture of a vicious-looking fish that resembles the movie character Jaws under the title "Shark Watch" on its front cover.
The report contains a chronological narrative that traces an increasing presence of plaintiffs lawyers in Republican politics in Texas from the year 2000 to the present - and it includes colorful graphics, pictures of politically-active Texas trial lawyers, some Democrats who they've supported and more real sharks gliding below the surface of ominous dark waters.
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San Antonio Express Conservatives' Eyes On Trial
Lawyers
by Gary Scharrer
[ARTICLE EXCERPT] - A grass-roots conservative group contends that Texas trial lawyers are trying to infiltrate the state Republican Party by spending large sums on candidates in primary elections with hopes of influencing them later.
Texans for Texas is launching a "shark watch" alert this week with more than 50,000 e-mails and the mailing of a slick 20-page report that describes the lawyers' money trail.
"I saw all this infiltration and influence by the trial lawyer culture, which is not compatible with the basic conservative agenda, so there's not really a way for conservatives to support what the plaintiffs/class action/trial lawyers are trying to do," said Janelle Shepard, executive director of Texans For Texas.
Shepard, a registered nurse who works in a Fort Worth hospital, formed the nonprofit organization three years ago to promote conservative principles.
"We want to give people a background of what's happening, and I don't see it stopping anytime soon," she said.
Landing in the report's bull's-eye are the five Texas tobacco lawyers who won a $17 billion settlement for the state in the mid-1990s and a multibillion-dollar fee for themselves paid by big tobacco companies; the Dallas law firm of Baron & Budd; and Houston trial lawyer Mark Lanier.
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Beaumont Enterprise Conservative Sees Pattern In
Giving
By Rachel Stone and
Kevin J. Dwyer
[ARTICLE EXCERPT] - With the Democratic Party in recent years on the down-and-out in the Lone Star State, some Republicans are concerned the opposition's financial backers might be trying to buy the majority's influence.
Janelle Shepard of Weatherford is a conservative activist who formed the grassroots group "Texans for Texas" to keep a watchful eye on who's giving campaign money to whom. She is especially concerned about donations from the state's trial lawyers to Republican candidates.
"I realized that this seemed to be so covert," Shepard said of wealthy trial lawyers donating to GOP candidates.
As a registered nurse, she said she took special interest in tort reform as it relates to medical malpractice. Shepard saw trial lawyers were donating to conservative politicians, but that no one else seemed to notice.
"I always felt like I never got all the information," Shepard said in a telephone interview. "Once you start putting it all together, it's like a mosaic. All the tiny pieces give you the whole picture."
One of the trial attorneys Shepard highlights on her Web site is Mark Lanier, who has won large verdicts against drug and asbestos companies. Lanier has donated more than $1,000 to Gov. Rick Perry, more than $75,000 to Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst and $2,000 to the Harris County Republican Party, according to the Texas Ethics Commission.
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Texas Lawyer Report Takes A Bite Out of Trial Lawyers
by Mary Alice Robbins
[ARTICLE EXCERPT] - A conservative group contends in a new report that Texas trial lawyers are sharks and that the state Republican Party is their prey.
Texans for Texas, a nonprofit organization, warns in the "shark watch" alert, e-mailed to grassroots conservatives on Jan. 16, that trial lawyers have infiltrated the Republican Party to thwart tort reforms.
In the 19-page report, illustrated throughout with pictures of sharks and brightly colored graphics, the group contends that personal-injury lawyers, including Fred Baron, John Eddie Williams and W. Mark Lanier, have quietly poured money into Republican campaigns and organizations in an attempt to drive a wedge through the Republican Party on civil justice issues.
"They [trial lawyers] covertly recruit and fund candidates for GOP primaries," the group contends in its report.
"We're just wanting conservatives to understand who's writing checks to what candidates," says Janelle Shepard, executive director of Texans for Texas and former Parker County Republican Party chairwoman.
Williams, a partner in Houston's Williams Bailey, says he has supported Republicans, Democrats and independents.
"I support people who support a system that allows trials by jury, as allowed in the Constitution, and holding wrongdoers accountable," Williams says.
But Williams says he's a little busy to be out recruiting candidates to run as Republicans, as contended in the report.
"It's mean-spirited, inappropriate and stupid," Marc Stanley, president of the Texas Trial Lawyers Association, says of the report.
"It's a moral outrage," says Wayne Reaud, a partner in Beaumont's Reaud, Morgan & Quinn. "They're trying to deny certain people the right to participate in the political process," says Reaud, identified in the report as one of the five lawyers who in 1998 represented Texas in its suit against tobacco companies, which resulted in a $17.3 billion settlement for the state.
Eric Stratton, "Shark Watch" project director, says Texans for Texas doesn't have a problem with all trial lawyers who contribute to Republicans, only with personal-injury plaintiffs attorneys who "promote the blame culture."
Baron, a partner in Dallas' Baron & Budd, is critical of those behind the report. "They have lowered the discourse to the gutter," he says. "That's unfortunate for everyone in Texas."
