Stories in a couple of national media outlets recently tried to paint rising young Texas Democratic star James Talarico as a hypocrite, saying he has slammed the role of billionaires in funding Texas politicians, but himself accepted $59,000 from a PAC associated with a prominent Republican billionaire. That billionaire, Miriam Adelson, was a leading funder of President Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign. Both media outlets — Politico and Fox News — also pointed out that Talarico has introduced a bill limiting contributions to state officials and candidates to $10,000. Yet, they pointed out, Talarico accepted the much larger than $10,000 contribution himself.
A spokesperson for Talarico told Fox News that the representative filed the legislation because he “believes our campaign finance system is deeply broken,” but “he will not unilaterally disarm and let Texas Republicans play by different rules.”
Follow-up research by the Austin Independent found that the situation is a little more complicated than Fox and Politico reported, which we will discuss further down. First let’s examine something far more hypocritical that the Austin Independent discovered in our follow-up research on the Politico and Fox stories. It takes us back to the 2024 Travis County Democratic Primary contest for District Attorney. That race featured one term incumbent José Garza being challenged by former Assistant District Attorney Jeremy Sylestine. Sylestine repeatedly criticized Garza for letting multiple violent criminals go free with light sentences or no punishment at all. Garza responded by maintaining that Sylestine was “the MAGA candidate.”
In the closing weeks of that election a group of ten Democratic elected officials from Travis County, led by Congressman Greg Casar, sent Sylestine a public letter. It began:
“We are elected Democratic Officials in Travis County and we are writing to call upon you to renounce Republican money and Republican attacks in the Democratic Primary in our community.
A recent review of your donors reveals that a significant amount of your resources in the Democratic Primary comes from wealthy individuals who have supported Republicans like Donald Trump, Nikki Haley and Ted Cruz.”
Among other things, that means that Talarico and his elected allies sought to create a new standard for Democratic office seekers in Travis County; it is unacceptable to take contributions “from wealthy individuals who have supported Republicans like Donald Trump, Nikki Haley and Ted Cruz.” They demanded that Garza’s opponent “renounce” such contributions and support.
By the way Talarico and his allies did not even name any specific contributors to Sylestine to back up their assertion. Just making the assertion was enough in a Travis County Democratic Primary. Garza won by a two-to-one margin.
It seems logical to conclude that the ten office holders would hold themselves to the standard they demanded of Sylestine. At least with Talarico that was not the case. And it’s not like so much time went by that Talarico just forgot about the new rule he and his buddies made up. The letter from the ten officials was dated February 21, 2024. The very next day Talarico accepted two contributions totaling $54,500 from the Texas Sands PAC. That PAC is affiliated with Miriam Adelson, the widow of Sheldon Adelson – who was a Las Vegas casino magnate and huge Republican donor. Adelson is also the owner of the Dallas Mavericks. Her core interest in the Texas Legislature is winning approval for legalized gambling in the state.
James Talarico Contributor and Expense Report
Austin state representatives Sheryl Cole and Lulu Flores, who both signed the letter demanding that José Garza’s challenger “renounce Republican money,” also received contributions from Adelson’s Texas Sands PAC. Each received $4,000 in June 2024 and another $4,000 in December, for a total of $8,000 each.
According to the New York Times Miriam Adelson “put $100 million into her pro-Trump super PAC,” called Preserve America. That turned out to not be enough according to a Times article in late October 2024. Adelson, wrote the Times, was raising more money from other wealthy people to keep Trump ads “on television in the battleground states of Wisconsin and Michigan.”
According to the New York Times Miriam Adelson “put $100 million into her pro-Trump super PAC,” called Preserve America.
The websites Open Secrets and Visual Capitalist both list Miriam Adelson as the third biggest donor to Trump last year, after Elon Musk and Timothy Mellon. Politico points out that Adelson’s PAC was Talarico’s biggest donor last year. So, last year Miriam Adelson was Donald Trump’s third biggest donor and James Talarico’s biggest donor. That is definitely not in line with the standard that Talarico, Casar and their eight fellow elected officials set for District Attorney José Garza’s opponent in last year’s Democratic Primary.
Last year Miriam Adelson was Donald Trump’s third biggest donor and James Talarico’s biggest donor.
Open Secrets lists the total Adelson put toward the Trump campaign at $106 million. Visual Capitalist puts it at $148 million. The difference is likely because Adelson raised additional funds from others for her pro-Trump PAC after $100 million proved to not be enough. That is discussed in the New York Times story mentioned above from late October 2024 . Trump also awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Miriam Adelson in 2018.
The ten elected officials from Travis County also listed as taboo, contributions from people who have contributed to Nikki Haley or Ted Cruz. According to a 2022 Politico story Miriam Adelson contributed $250,000 toward a “nonprofit policy advocacy group” that Haley was then utilizing as “as she lays the groundwork for a prospective 2024 presidential bid.” According to the New York Times Miriam Adelson is close with Haley and told Trump she would not donate to him until after Haley was out of the 2024 Republican nomination race.
The Times also reported that in 2016 Miriam Adelson “was partial to Ted Cruz” for president while her husband favored Marco Rubio. That year both she and her husband gave the maximum of $2,700 to Cruz’s presidential campaign.
Her support for Cruz has continued. For instance the Texas Tribune reported that Adelson “gave $1 million to a super PAC supporting Sen. Ted Cruz’s reelection,” although that was in June 2024, after her PAC’s contribution to Talarico and after the letter from the ten elected officials was released.
Given all this, it seems pretty clear that Talarico, who is known as a Democrat who frequently talks publicly about his Christian faith, did not follow the Golden Rule i.e. doing unto others as you would have them do unto you. Instead he tried to publicly set a rule for someone else that he did not follow himself; a rule that he broke the very next day.
Given all this, it seems pretty clear that Talarico, who is known as a Democrat who frequently talks publicly about his Christian faith, did not follow the Golden Rule i.e. doing unto others as you would have them do unto you.
Talarico did not answer written questions submitted by the Austin Independent or respond to the offer of an interview.
By the way, the rule (or tactic) promulgated by The Ten caught on among other Travis County Democrats. Later, in December 2024, successful City Council candidate Mike Siegel used the same principle – about it being taboo to take contributions from people who have donated to Republicans — to smear his runoff opponent Gary Bledsoe (longtime head of the state NAACP). Siegel was successful in that smear even though the contributions Siegel was attacking were to a PAC which was supporting Bledsoe, but — due to the brilliance of our current election system — over which Bledsoe had, by law, no control and was forbidden to coordinate with.
Congressman Greg Casar and Council Member Mike Siegel celebrating Siegel’s December 2024 election victory
In closing this section I want to explain why I said earlier that the letter to José Garza’s opponent — demanding that he “renounce Republican money” — was an effort led by Congressman Greg Casar. I say that because Casar’s name was the first name on the letter. Also, he was a leading figure in bringing Garza to town, where he replaced Casar at Workers Defense. And, Casar was a vocal advocate for Garza in both his successful races for District Attorney. Casar was also an active supporter of Mike Siegel’s campaign.
Not Exactly Railing
Now, let’s take a look at the two stories that brought the Adelson’s contribution to light, starting with the headlines. Fox went with “Texas Democrat who rails against billionaire cash takes $59K from Trump-backing megadonor.”
The Politico headline was “Dem darling showered with Miriam Adelson-linked money.” Their lead was: “Texas Democrat James Talarico has built a national profile railing against GOP billionaires in politics — but has quietly accepted funds from a PAC backed by one of the wealthiest donors in the Republican Party.” Politico added that as Democrats “look to take back power in the Trump era, they are increasingly leaning into populism and bashing billionaires, opening themselves up to attacks of hypocrisy.”
I would certainly not dispute that many Democrats — beyond Talarico, Cole and Flores — open themselves up to being attacked for “hypocrisy.” But, I would argue that Talarico’s national profile is built on considerably more than “railing against GOP billionaires in politics.”
That is the sad thing about this story. I can see how Talarico became a rising star in the Texas Democratic Party with a national following. He is thoughtful, articulate, quick on his feet and well researched. He is not afraid to do things like going on Fox News, or Joe Rogan. He also is a Democrat who openly talks about his Christianity. While this might not be the favorite approach of some, including this reporter, Talarico takes it in some interesting directions. For instance, on Joe Rogan he explained how he can be Christian and still oppose posting the Ten Commandments in schools. As part of that answer he articulated the critical importance of freedom of religion in the US. [Rogan transcript]
Former President Barack Obama even called Talarico while Texas House Democrats were hiding out in Chicago to praise Talarico for his leadership and for his framing of the redistricting issue.
Back to the Rogan show, Talarico didn’t really “rail” against billionaires there. In fact his discussion of billionaires was almost totally confined to an informative discussion of what he called “the two billionaires that I think basically control State government here in Texas.” Talarico then calmly explained that he was referring to “two billionaires from West Texas” named Tim Dunn and Farris Wilkes. He said that in addition to being successful oilmen they are both “Christian nationalist pastors,” and later added, “they increasingly run this whole government here in Texas. And you ask where the Ten Commandments bill comes from. You ask where that school counselor chaplain bill comes from, the voucher bill, the abortion ban. A lot of this is driven by these two billionaires.”
Rogan interjected that he thinks “most people are unaware” of this.
Talarico replied with a critique of the mainstream media. “The mainstream media, for some reason, will not name these two guys. I think it’s like this gentleman’s agreement or you have to talk about the elected officials. I’m like, it doesn’t matter who the elected officials are if these billionaires buy whoever’s elected.” (Talarico appears to have a point on the mainstream media refusing to name Dunn and Wilkes, but the Texas Tribune has reported fairly extensively on them. ProPublica has also reported on the pair.)
So Talarico is not only articulate, but brave enough to go on Joe Rogan and take on two powerful billionaires while accusing his Republican House colleagues of being bought by them. But, accusing others of taking money from people who also donated to Trump then accepting a huge donation the next day from someone who donated over $100 million to Trump is just flat out hypocritical. This is one type of thing — but only one of very many — that gets Democrats into trouble. Republicans of course know how to exploit such openings and weaknesses. In football parlance they know how to convert turnovers into points. Republicans are also more skilled at getting away with hypocrisy.
Talarico is considered a potential candidate for the US Senate next year, in the seat currently held by John Cornyn. This kind of misstep could present difficulty for him, even in the Democratic primary. In fact, more perilous than the specific incident highlighted here, will likely be that he is an ardent supporter of José Garza in the first place. That will almost certainly come back to haunt him in a general election. Perhaps it’s not too late to acknowledge he was wrong about Garza and to call out the District Attorney for his incompetence and his endangering of the citizens of Travis County, including Talarico’s constituents. Also, it might be a good idea to not blindly join in on the political tactics of Greg Casar. Supporting Garza is unlikely to hurt Casar running in a Democratic-dominated Travis County District, even if he draws an opponent. The same would not likely to be true for a statewide candidate, as Talarico is pondering becoming.
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