Texas

As the Texas Senate was getting down to work on the “bathroom bill,” Dr. Steve Hotze, an anti-gay activist and longtime business partner of Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, began running television ads against Speaker Joe Straus in his district demanding the measure receive a vote in the House. After Senate Bill 6 passed the full Senate, Dr. Hotze’s plan includes running TV ads and robocalls in the districts of other key Texas House members......

The Houston delegation is certainly familiar with Hotze. It’s probably an understatement to say Hotze’s history of involvement in Harris County politics is extensive. It was in the Bayou City where he was joined by Lt. Gov. Patrick in defeating the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance. Gov. Greg Abbott, risk averse as always, did not get involved with that until it was pretty clear HERO would be defeated and sent out a tweet supporting Hotze’s position right before the election. In the suburbs around Houston, Hotze’s activism and political cash were critical in unseating former Representatives Debbie Riddle, R-Tomball, and Wayne Smith, R-Baytown, in last year’s Republican primaries.

Outside Southeast Texas, though, Dr. Hotze has not had nearly as much impact and therefore is simply not as well known. Critics of the “bathroom bill,” including the Texas Association of Business, argue Hotze’s latest cause will hurt the Texas economy because it is viewed by many as discriminatory......

Hotze’s group, the Conservative Republicans of Texas, has been listed by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a hate group alongside the New Black Panthers, Neo-Nazi organizations like the Atomwaffen Division in San Antonio, Holocaust Denial in Kerrville, and chapters of the KKK like the Militant Knights of the Ku Klux Klan in Flint, Texas.