The Other Things They Agree On
Same plumbing. Different mansions.
By Markus Grant | The Ranter
Kelcy Warren co-founded Energy Transfer Partners, a Dallas pipeline company. In February 2021, Winter Storm Uri killed 246 Texans and left 4.5 million homes without power. Energy Transfer made approximately $2.4 billion in profits during the blackout by selling natural gas at unprecedented prices to desperate power generators.
Four months later, Warren donated $1 million to Greg Abbott’s campaign. It was four times his previous annual donations to the governor and the largest single contribution Warren had ever made to a Texas state politician. Abbott’s spokeswoman declined to comment on the specific donation.
University of Texas energy professor Michael Webber told the Texas Tribune that making a million-dollar political donation to reward a government for its light touch, while hundreds of people die, looked like a good return on investment.
Three months before the storm, Abbott’s appointees on the Public Utility Commission had discontinued the contract of the Texas Reliability Entity, the independent nonprofit that monitored electric providers’ compliance with reliability standards.
JB Pritzker is worth approximately $3.9 billion. He self-funded two gubernatorial campaigns at a combined cost of $323 million, the all-time record for personal campaign spending in American history. He does not accept the governor’s salary.
His blind trust includes financial interests in at least 12 companies that collectively earned more than $20 billion in state contracts since he took office. Centene Corporation, the nation’s largest Medicaid managed care company, has been paid $20.6 billion through its Illinois subsidiary since 2019. Pritzker’s blind trust purchased Centene stock in 2020, after the company had already become one of Illinois’s most significant Medicaid vendors.
When reporters asked about the investment, Pritzker said he only learned of it “because a reporter called last week.”
One governor’s top donor made $2.4 billion from a storm that killed 246 people, then wrote a million-dollar check. The other governor’s trust bought stock in the company collecting $20.6 billion from the state he runs. Both arrangements were legal.
Abbott has raised approximately $348 million over his political career, making him the most prolific fundraiser in Texas state political history. Texas has no contribution limits. The Associated Press reported that roughly 70 percent of his donations arrive in amounts of $10,000 or more.
A Texas Tribune analysis of 25 years of campaign finance records identified 39 donors who each contributed more than $1 million. That group contributed more than one fourth of his total haul. More than 43 percent of the 114 Abbott appointees to university and higher education boards have given more than $25,000 since he first ran for governor.
The mechanism is straightforward. The governor appoints people to boards that oversee universities, parks, utilities, and transportation. The people he appoints donate to his campaign. All but one of his 12 Parks and Wildlife Commission appointees donated, averaging $923,000 each.
A Lubbock developer named George McMahan told a reporter in 2018 how it works: “You make a large donation to the governor, and in turn you are eligible for appointment to the Board of Regents.” Abbott’s chief of staff called McMahan the next day. The donation was returned. McMahan was uninvited from a fundraiser. He told the Tribune his remarks had been taken out of context.
A September 2025 Public Citizen report found that donors to Abbott’s PAC received approximately $950 million in no-bid state contracts awarded under emergency declarations between 2020 and 2024. Eighty-nine contracts went to companies connected to Abbott donors. Public Citizen highlighted one example: Doggett Freightliners received two no-bid contracts totaling $1.6 million, the second finalized eight days after its CEO donated $500,000. The CEO had given $1.7 million total since 2014.
Public Citizen noted that the data does not indicate Abbott or his contributors broke the law.
Pritzker does not need donors. He is the donor. That is the structural difference, and it changes nothing about the mechanism.
In 2007, he and his wife purchased a 6,378-square-foot mansion adjacent to their primary Gold Coast residence for $3.7 million. In 2015, his wife directed a contractor to remove five toilets, reclassifying the property as uninhabitable. Cook County assessors dropped the mansion’s assessed value from $6.3 million to $1.1 million. The scheme saved the Pritzkers $331,432 in property taxes.
The Cook County Inspector General, a Democrat, concluded the toilet removal constituted a “scheme to defraud” taxpayers and found that false representations had been submitted in sworn affidavits about the mansion’s condition. The FBI opened an investigation in April 2019. No charges were ever filed.
Pritzker pledged to repay $330,000 the day after the report leaked, five weeks before the election. He fulfilled the pledge.
The governor worth $3.9 billion removed five toilets from a mansion to save $331,000. That is 0.008 percent of his net worth. The scheme was not about the money. At that level, it never is. It was about the habit.
Both governors picked a fight designed for the highlight reel.
Abbott built a national brand on border security. Operation Lone Star, launched in March 2021, deployed the Texas National Guard and state troopers to the U.S.-Mexico border. The operation has cost Texas taxpayers more than $11 billion through 2025. Abbott bused migrants from Texas border towns to New York, Chicago, Denver, and Washington, D.C., generating sustained national media coverage.
The border fight drove small-dollar donations and cemented Abbott’s position as a national Republican figure. Oil and gas remained his top industry sector at $7.5 million in 2022. Real estate gave $4.2 million. Securities and investment gave $3.6 million. The culture war brand did not cost him his donor base. It amplified it.
Pritzker built a national brand as the progressive governor who does things. Cannabis legalization with expungement of 800,000 records. Assault weapons ban. Cash bail elimination. Minimum wage to $15. Each policy came with a signing ceremony and a national news cycle. After the graduated income tax amendment failed at the ballot box in 2020, Pritzker blamed “billionaires and special interests” for spending $54 million to defeat it. He had spent $56 million of his own money promoting it.
The progressive brand generates national visibility and presidential speculation. It costs him nothing from his donor base because he is his own donor base. The $323 million in self-funding makes him structurally immune to the donor pressure other governors face. And that structural immunity makes the blind trust intersection more difficult to explain, not less. Nobody forced Pritzker’s trust to buy Centene stock. There was no donor to please. The structural incentive was sufficient: the state was sending Centene $20.6 billion.
Abbott wears Fighter Identity armor. If you are always deploying the National Guard, nobody scrolls down to the $950 million in no-bid contracts or the $1 million check from the pipeline CEO whose company profited from 246 deaths.
Pritzker wears Business Credential armor. “I spent $56 million trying to raise my own taxes” absorbs every question about the $20.6 billion in Centene contracts, the stock purchase, and the toilets. The progressive record makes the business conflicts invisible because the credential is louder than the receipt.
Both governors have done real things that cut against the mechanism.
Abbott signed mandatory weatherization requirements for power generators and natural gas infrastructure after the storm. Fines of up to $1 million per violation. His own energy donors bear compliance costs. He directed the PUC to investigate CenterPoint Energy after Hurricane Beryl and the attorney general opened a criminal investigation. He signed three rounds of property tax relief totaling over $30 billion, constraining local government revenue in ways some of his real estate donors would not prefer.
The weatherization law had a loophole. Natural gas companies could opt out if regulators did not designate their facilities as “critical,” and companies had input on that designation. The timeline allowed compliance to be delayed until 2023. No legislation clawed back Energy Transfer’s $2.4 billion in storm profits. But the law existed, the fines were real, and the compliance burden was imposed on the industry that funds his campaigns.
Pritzker signed a minimum wage increase to $15 that directly raised labor costs for Hyatt Hotels, the family business. He spent $56 million promoting a tax increase on himself. He legalized cannabis with social equity provisions that generated no documented personal financial benefit. He does not take the governor’s salary. He achieved the first credit rating upgrades for Illinois in over 20 years.
The Centene stock purchase happened after he took office. His administration approved a Centene acquisition that required gubernatorial review. His trust had no formal policy against investing in state contractors. He signed his annual ethics disclosures listing the holdings under penalty of law, then told reporters he did not know the holdings existed until a reporter asked. But the minimum wage cost Hyatt real money, the tax amendment cost him $56 million, and the credit upgrades required fiscal discipline that his progressive base did not always reward.
The mechanism is not total capture. It is selective alignment. Both governors choose which fights to have. Abbott fights the border. Pritzker fights for progressive policy with his name on it. The fights are real. The structural conflicts are also real. They coexist, and the fight absorbs the attention that would otherwise land on the conflict.
A $1 million check from a pipeline CEO after a storm kills 246 people does not trend the same week as a border bus to Chicago. A $20.6 billion Medicaid contract with a company the governor’s trust owns stock in does not compete with a cannabis legalization signing ceremony. A $950 million no-bid contract portfolio does not fit in a campaign ad. A toilet scheme worth $331,000 does not define a $3.9 billion governor who spent $56 million trying to raise his own taxes.
The other things they agree on are the things that never make the highlight reel.
SOURCES
Energy Transfer / Winter Storm Uri: Energy Transfer $2.4B profits: Reuters, May 2021; Bloomberg, May 2021; S&P Global, May 2021. Death toll (246 official): Texas Tribune, January 2022; NPR, January 2022. BuzzFeed News excess mortality analysis (702 estimated): BuzzFeed News GitHub, May 2021.
Warren Donation / PUC: Warren $1M donation, 4x prior, largest to a Texas state politician: Texas Observer, July 2021; Texas Tribune, August 2021; Business Insider, August 2021. Webber quote: Texas Tribune, October 2022. PUC discontinued Texas Reliability Entity: Texas Standard/Houston Chronicle, February 2021; RTO Insider, October 2020.
Abbott Fundraising / Appointments: $348M career total, 39 million-dollar donors, 43% university/higher ed appointees, Parks & Wildlife averages, McMahan quote: Texas Tribune, October 2022. 70% of donations $10K+: AP via Texas Standard, February 2019. OpenSecrets 2022 industry breakdown.
No-Bid Contracts: $950M in no-bid contracts, 89 contracts, Doggett example: Public Citizen “Awarding Influence,” September 2025 (press release and full PDF report).
Pritzker Wealth / Self-Funding / Blind Trust: $3.9B net worth: Forbes. $323M self-funded: Illinois Policy Institute, April 2023; NPR, October 2018. Governor’s salary declined: Chicago Tribune, November 2018. 12 companies/$20B+ state contracts: BGA/WTTW, August 2022; Illinois Policy Institute, August 2022. Centene $20.6B and stock purchase: BGA, February 2022; Illinois Answers Project, February 2022; ABC 7 Chicago. Centene CEO meeting/Wellcare: Illinois Answers Project, August 2022. “Because a reporter called last week”: BGA, February 2022.
Toilet Scheme: Mansion purchase: Chicago Tribune, October 2018. Five toilets, assessment drop, $331,432 savings, “scheme to defraud”: Cook County IG via NPR, October 2018; Chicago Tribune, October 2018; Business Insider/AP. FBI investigation: WTTW, April 2019; WILL Illinois Radio, April 2019; Illinois Policy Institute, July 2020. Repayment: Chicago Tribune, October 2018.
Operation Lone Star: More than $11B: Texas Tribune, January 2025 (Abbott reimbursement request); ILRC report, February 2025; El País, March 2025. Migrant busing: NBC News, December 2023; Fox News, February 2024; Texas Tribune, December 2023. Industry contributions 2022: OpenSecrets.
Pritzker Progressive Record: Cannabis/800K expungements: WTTW, June 2019; CNN, June 2019. $56M vs. $54M graduated income tax: CNBC, September 2020; WTTW, November 2020; Jacobin, November 2020.
Counter-Evidence (Abbott): SB 3 weatherization, fines up to $1M/violation: NPR, June 2021. Loophole: Texas Tribune, September 2021; News4 San Antonio, October 2021. CenterPoint investigation: Texas Tribune, July 2024; Washington Examiner, August 2024. Property tax relief $22.7B + $10B: Texas Senate press, June 2025; FOX 4 Dallas; KSAT San Antonio.
Counter-Evidence (Pritzker): $15 minimum wage: PBS NewsHour, February 2019. Credit upgrades first in 20+ years: ABC 7 Chicago, June 2021; Illinois Senate Democrats.
Appointments / Zalewski / Madigan: Zalewski ICC appointment and resignation: RTO Insider, March 2023; Chicago Tribune, March 2023; NPR/WBEZ, July 2020; Illinois Policy Institute, July 2020. Madigan appointment list: Courthouse News, December 2024; Illinois Policy Institute/WBEZ, November 2020; Yahoo News, December 2024.