Texas has a cautionary tale about what happens when you investigate a billionaire’s bank.
Rep. Dan Crenshaw signed a letter to AG Paxton about Colony Ridge loans, and the billionaire behind those loans spent the next cycle making sure Crenshaw wouldn’t be around to ask any more questions. The replacement congressman isn’t going to be investigating Woodforest National Bank’s lending practices anytime soon.
What you’re looking at is a party where loyalty flows exclusively upward and toward money, where actual accomplishments like legislation passed, service rendered, and elections won count for nothing against performative allegiance. Where a banker with $675,000 and a grudge has more power to determine representation than the voters who originally elected the guy. Crenshaw outfundraised Toth by $1.3 million and still lost 55-40, because the Marling money was concentrated on a super PAC running nonstop attack ads. Crenshaw’s fundraising couldn’t match the negative air cover.
Crenshaw had been the GOP’s dream candidate in 2018, a Navy SEAL wounded in Afghanistan, telegenic, articulate, young, conservative by any historical measure. A Pete Davidson SNL moment turned him into a national figure overnight.
He was supposed to be the future of the party.
Then he committed the unforgivable sin of being opposed to billionaire crimes. He acknowledged reality, and rejected January 6 attacks and certified an election that was, by every legal and evidentiary standard, legitimate. And he supported the Afghan interpreters and soldiers who fought alongside him and his fellow SEALs, the people whose abandonment would be an actual betrayal of military honor.
For this he was reframed as weak, and accused of wanting to flood neighborhoods with Islam.
The guy who replaced him, Steve Toth, is a nobody who has accomplished literally nothing. He filed 79 bills in the Texas legislature last session. Only two made it out of committee. None passed. The man can’t shoot straight. But to a billionaire who hates Crenshaw, competence is the problem that needs to be replaced with incompetence.
The Ted Cruz angle on this is particularly rich.
In 2021, Cruz began a phone call by thanking Crenshaw for defending him publicly after January 6, when Cruz was facing national backlash for fundraising off the riot. Crenshaw stuck his neck out for Cruz, and Cruz repaid it by endorsing his opponent — partly because of his financial relationship with Marling, partly because Cruz allies feared Crenshaw was preparing a primary bid against the senator.
So Cruz preemptively knifed him.