June 2, 2025      1:43 PM

US Supreme Court declines to hear MQS lawsuit against Texas Ethics Commission

Statesman Reporter Bayliss Wagner with the update:

The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear a conservative activist’s lawsuit challenging the Texas Ethics Commission’s enforcement powers, effectively ending a decade-long effort to weaken the watchdog agency.

Michael Quinn Sullivan and Empower Texans, a now-disbanded powerful political advocacy group largely funded by West Texas oil billionaires Tim Dunn and Farris Wilks, filed the lawsuit in 2014 after the ethics agency fined Sullivan $10,000 for failing to register as a lobbyist. The commission unanimously found he worked to influence GOP lawmakers' votes on behalf of Empower Texans, a position for which he was paid around $130,000 annually.

An El Paso appeals court in 2022 upheld the agency’s ability to enforce election laws, and the all-Republican Texas Supreme Court declined to take up the case on appeal. Sullivan then made a Hail Mary request to the nation’s highest court.

Copyright June 02, 2025, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved