In the early 1970s, Texas experienced one of the most explosive political scandals in its history. House Speaker Gus Mutscher was convicted, and several other top state officials were implicated for their roles in a bribery scheme in which they received profitable stocks from Houston banker Frank Sharp in exchange for passing favorable legislation in Austin.
This saga, which became known as the Sharpstown scandal, toppled the Texas ruling class of conservative Democrats—including the speaker, governor, lieutenant governor, and attorney general. It also ushered in a brief but forceful era of progressive reform, led by a coalition of Republicans and liberal Dems, centered on cleaning up state government.
The resulting laws formed the bedrock of open government and ethics regulations in modern Texas government—from disclosure of campaign financing and paid lobbying to the state’s open records and open meetings laws—which have helped let some sunlight into the backrooms of power.
Fast forward 50 years to the latest battle for the Texas House speakership, in which a bloc of self-proclaimed conservative reformers invoked the Sharpstown reckoning in their crusade to take down Republican Speaker Dade Phelan and root out an alleged cabal of corrupted “RINOs” who they claim have conspired with lobbyists and Democrats to control the chamber at the expense of the GOP grassroots.
“The problem then (as now) was the transactional system of loyalty and compromise the Speaker had created,” state Representative Mitch Little, a first-term conservative who became a ringleader of the “reform” bloc, said in a lengthy post on social media titled “Sharpstown 2.0.”
This crew released a series of demands for a GOP speaker who had support from a GOP majority and commitments to procedural reforms in the chamber—such as banning the longtime practice of appointing some Democrats to chair committees. They rallied around North Texas Republican Representative David Cook as their chosen insurgent and stirred up enough discontent to force Phelan to back out of his bid to retain the gavel.
But Phelan was quickly replaced by one of his top lieutenants, Lubbock state Representative Dustin Burrows.
This, the right-wing bloc argued, was evidence of a new Sharpstown-esque scandal involving the speakership and a bank. Phelan and Burrows, you see, had both been top lieutenants under the ill-fated and brief speakership of Dennis Bonnen, who was brought down by the tactics of the same right-wing groups sounding the alarm now.
Phelan and Burrows, along with House Appropriations Chairman Greg Bonnen (Dennis’ brother) and another allied member, all own stock in the Humble-based Third Coast Bank, where ex-Speaker Bonnen has served on the board of directors since his own bank merged with the company. (It was an open secret in the Capitol that Dennis Bonnen freely pitched lawmakers and lobbyists on investing in his bank while he was in office.) The former speaker has since become a lobbyist for his own firm, called Second Floor Strategies—a reference to the Capitol level home to the legislative chambers and leadership offices—and reportedly acted as sherpa for Burrows’ speakership bid.
The right-wing “reformers” made a lot of noise on social media about the banking interests of this alleged cabal, though unlike Sharpstown, they offered no proof of any criminal wrongdoing.
Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, a vehement opponent of Phelan and Burrows, likened this Third Coast cohort to “a non-criminal version of the ‘Goodfellas’” that ran the House “like their own personal business” and doled out punishment and retribution to those who stepped out of line.
Phelan dismissed this as “ridiculous and disingenuous,” saying he had sold off his shares in Third Coast in recent years and held no stake in the bank, though his most recent personal financial disclosures from 2024 showed otherwise.
Meanwhile, Burrows and his Republican allies, along with many Democrats, said that Cook and the “reformers” were acting as puppets for West Texas billionaire oligarchs like Tim Dunn and Farris Wilks, who’d pumped tons of money into efforts to take control of the House.
After a simmering battle that largely played out behind closed doors, Burrows ultimately won the speakership by winning over more Democrats than Republicans (proof, of course, of the far right’s righteous cause).
But for all the fevered rhetoric and lofty promises of reform, neither side had anything to say about the need for actual ethics and campaign finance reform to address the real problems plaguing the Texas House.
Of the hundreds of bills filed so far this session, vanishingly few are aimed at cracking down on the unfettered influence of powerful lobbyists and big donors in Austin, or upholding the ethical integrity of legislators and other state officials.
There are a smattering of bills to create campaign contribution limits; close loopholes that allow lobbyists to avoid naming the legislators they wine and dine; and require outgoing legislators to wait at least one session before they can cash in as lobbyists. (In 2019, the Lege did pass a limited law preventing lawmakers who donated to colleagues’ campaigns from immediately becoming lobbyists, but the revolving door otherwise swings freely, especially to and from the House.)
But there’s been little interest in cracking down on actual corruption, or the appearance thereof, under the pink dome. Most politicians, regardless of party, have little interest in subjecting themselves to more public scrutiny or biting the lobbyist and donor hands that (sometimes literally) feed them.
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It wasn’t always this way. A decade ago, newly elected Governor Greg Abbott made ethics reform one of his emergency priorities.
“The most important commodity that we have as elected officials is the bond that we share with our constituents. Transparency and rising above the appearance of impropriety will strengthen that bond,” Abbott proclaimed then. “But rejection of ethics reform could weaken that bond and rightfully raise suspicions about who we truly serve—ourselves, or the people of Texas?”
What began as a sweeping package of new laws around ethics, lobbying, and campaign finance in 2015 ultimately withered into dust in the final days of that session. Not one major plank of Abbott’s ethics agenda—including a ban on revolving-door lobbying—was signed into law. Nor has any been since.
Though Abbott made ethics reform an emergency item in the following session as well, the Lege failed to pass anything. Since then, the issue has been relegated to the hinterlands—a priority for no one but the goo-goo watchdogs and gadflies. Abbott, meanwhile, became a symbol of the need for his erstwhile proposals as he was seduced by the allure of megadonor fundraising—and advised by aides who frequently came from and went to lucrative lobbying gigs.
As Sharpstown showed, ethics reform typically only comes in response to a catalyzing scandal that causes broad popular outrage. There’s been plenty of fodder over the years. Lawmakers indicted for corruption or fraud. An attorney general under federal investigation and impeached for alleged corruption. A lieutenant governor who, before presiding over that impeachment trial, took $3 million from the AG’s billionaire boosters. A governor who took $12 million from an out-of-state donor to finance his school voucher crusade. And, yes, plenty of unsavory dealings by the powers that be in the House.
And yet. If the scandalous sins of Sharpstown were to be exposed today, one has to wonder if anyone would blink.
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