Republicans are being infiltrated by the plaintiff’s bar, writes the chairman and founder of Texans for Lawsuit Reform.
For decades, America’s personal injury lawyers were a predictable political force. They funded Democrats, funded liberal causes, fought lawsuit reform, and built their fortunes in places where the courts treat litigation as an industry. From California to Illinois to New York, they have poured millions into the left’s campaign coffers to preserve a system where suing is a business strategy, not a last resort.
But they are engaged in something more insidious, too. In Texas, the plaintiff’s bar hasn’t changed its goals. But, as they have done in other states, they have changed their strategy. The same trial lawyers who once bankrolled Democrats are now spending heavily to influence Republican primaries in Texas, hoping to buy influence where voters least expect it.
This isn’t a partisan conversion. It’s an infiltration. A charade.
This year, two of Texas’s most prominent Democratic trial lawyers — Kurt Arnold and Jason Itkin — have begun writing six-figure checks to Republican candidates in key primaries. They recently funded their PAC with a $10 million donation that is now being used to influence GOP races. They’ve discovered they don’t need to win general elections to block reform — they only need to shape who gets on the ballot. By posing as allies of the right, they can protect their legal privileges while claiming to defend Texans’ rights.
And for the moment, the tactic appears to be working. Several Republican House members who joined Democrats to weaken a major lawsuit-reform bill in Texas during its 2025 regular legislative session later received a campaign contribution from that same PAC. Arnold & Itkin’s namesake partners have long donated millions to Democrat candidates and causes – including more than $1 million to a George Soros–linked PAC that ran ads calling on voters to “Stop MAGA Republicans.” Yet now they happily fund Republicans in Texas, so long as those Republicans promise not to rein in lawsuit abuse.
It’s a cynical but effective inversion, and one that must be stopped.
In blue states, trial lawyers often prop up Democrats who block reform in the name of equity. In Texas, they prop up Republicans who block reform in the name of populism. The language changes, but the goal is the same: Keep the lawsuits flowing.
Consider the irony. The MAGA base is rightly wary of foreign influence. Banning the Chinese Communist Party and other foreign entities from buying Texas land was a prudent step the Legislature took last regular session. Yet many of the same candidates who supported that measure have stayed silent on those same actors’ financing of lawsuits against U.S. companies. Litigation finance has become a global industry, with foreign adversaries bankrolling American lawsuits pursued by mega-wealthy Democrat trial lawyers. It’s a loophole Congress and Texas should close.
If this sounds like political double-dealing, it is. The plaintiff’s bar has found a way to turn the right’s anti-elite instincts against itself. I hear them whisper that lawsuit reforms will “help woke corporations” or “hurt working people,” when in reality, lawsuit abuse drives up costs for everyone — higher prices and higher insurance premiums. Affordability will be the number one driver next election, and lawsuit abuse is making Texas unaffordable. Every frivolous lawsuit is a hidden tax on Texas families.
In the 1990s and 2000s, Texans for Lawsuit Reform helped usher in landmark reforms that made our courts fairer, our economy stronger, and our job market the envy of the country. Now, while Florida and Georgia surge ahead with bold reforms that are already lowering insurance costs for consumers, Texas’s trial lawyers are killing lawsuit reforms with help from Republicans they reward with campaign dollars.
It’s time to stop the charade. Lawsuit abuse reform is not anti-worker or anti-business – it’s pro-family, pro-fairness, and pro-growth. Texas’s economy depends on all three. The Democrats already have their donors in Hollywood and Silicon Valley. Texas Republicans shouldn’t let the personal injury bar become theirs.