TexasCHLforum.com

RX8er wrote:Should one PAC have that much power to swing the vote? I don't know if this was the only reason for such a large swing but probably had much to do with it. What happens when, not if, the Anti groups have a PAC as strong as the NRA-ILA and can do the same thing against us? This is why our politicians do what the money wants and not what is best for the group that elected them to office.

Well-organized NRA members and affiliated groups of gun owners hold rallies and pour resources into political campaigns. They flood local and national legislative offices with e-mails and phone calls. They make unannounced visits to the offices of lawmakers. The NRA’s lobbying arm posts myriad “Alerts,” calling on millions of members across the country to rise up at a moment’s notice. . . . That was before Begich was overwhelmed by phone calls and e-mails from NRA members and other gun rights activists. They warned him against voting for expanded background checks, to stop violating “our gun rights,” and to break with the Democratic Party or face the consequences in the next election.

JALLEN wrote:When the voters of California approved . . .

As a lifetime member of the National Rifle Association with an “A+” rating for her voting record in the Tennessee House of Representatives, Debra Maggart never imagined that her political career would end this way.

Maggart, who chaired the Republican caucus, killed an NRA-backed bill that would have permitted Tennesseans to keep firearms in their parked vehicles wherever they went — work, school or the neighborhood bar.

Months later, Maggart was stunned to see NRA-sponsored ads on billboards in her district. Her face was next to a picture of President Obama. The ads proclaimed: “Sure, Rep. Debra Maggart Says She Supports Your Gun Rights. Of Course, He Says the Same Thing.”

The NRA threw its support behind a newcomer in the Republican primary. By summer’s end, the woman who had been one of Tennessee’s most powerful Republicans ....

Maggart estimated that the NRA and other gun groups spent $155,000 on the race. She said all she could do was watch her polling numbers fall. She ended up losing the Republican primary by 16 percentage points to a candidate handpicked by the NRA, Courtney Rogers, a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel who had no political experience.