INSTITUTE INDEX: Scandal-plagued NRA maintains grip on state politics
This 2015 photo shows Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick with NRA lobbyist Tara Mica, who just weeks before the El Paso massacre bragged that 2019 was a "highly successful" year for the gun rights group in the Texas legislature. The NRA has contributed heavily to Texas state politics, including thousands of dollars to Patrick's campaigns. (Photo from Dan Patrick's Facebook page.)
Number of weeks before the massacre of shoppers at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, by a white-supremacist gunman that National Rifle Association Texas lobbyist Tara Mica bragged that 2019 was a "highly successful" year for the gun rights group in the state: 6
Percent of its legislative agenda that the NRA managed to win in Texas this year despite facing 10 official investigations over its nonprofit status, Russian ties, and possible campaign finance violations: 100
Under one of the laws passed this year in Texas, date on which churches, mosques, and synagogues will find it more difficult to prohibit firearms on their property — a measure introduced in response to the 2017 church massacre near San Antonio: 9/1/2019
Rank of Texas among the states where the NRA has made the greatest number of political contributions since 2000: 1
Rank of 2018 among the years where the NRA spent the most on political contributions in Texas: 1
Total amount the NRA has contributed to state-level politics nationwide since 2000: $17.9 million
Total amount the NRA contributed at the state level in 2016 alone, when its giving peaked due in large part to its unsuccessful effort to defeat a Nevada ballot measure requiring background checks for gun purchases: $8.3 million
After the NRA's internal governance issues began to receive scrutiny in 2018, factor by which its giving to state candidates and party committees fell from peak levels: more than 1/2
Number of states in which the NRA donated to party committees, all of them Republican, in 2018: 8
Of those eight states, number in the South: 4*
Rank of Virginia among the states where the NRA has spent the most since 2000: 6
Minutes that a recent special session of the Virginia legislature — called by Gov. Ralph Northam (D) to consider gun control legislation after the massacre at a Virginia Beach municipal building in May — lasted after both Republican-controlled chambers voted to adjourn until November without taking action, which the NRA called a major victory: 90
Rank of Virginia among the states where the NRA invested the most last year in Republican political committees: 1
* Louisiana, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia
(Click on figure to go to source. Many of the numbers in this index come from "NRA: Dramatic Drop in 2018 State-Level Contributions" by the National Institute on Money in Politics.)
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Sue Sturgis
Sue is the editorial director of Facing South and the Institute for Southern Studies.