Texas Public Interest Research Group (TEXPIRG)

Though it presents itself as a neutral, “commonsense” entity, ³ TexPIRG as well as the national PIRG umbrella organization share left-wing activist priorities, including weakening voting integrity requirements, climate change, public transportation, health care regulation, and net neutrality. ⁴

TexPIRG attempts to influence public policy through grassroots organizing, litigation, and media campaigns. ³ TexPIRG is also a member of the Public Interest Network, ³ which gathers organizations together to “work together on common progressive causes.” ⁵

Founding and History

TexPIRG was founded in 1972 ² as a member of the federation of state Public Interest Research Groups, which itself was founded in 1970 ³ and inspired by left-wing activist Ralph Nader. ¹ PIRGs originated as college campus organizations that grew into state lobbying groups in Minnesota, Oregon, and New York, eventually expanding to 47 states, including Texas. ⁶ The state affiliates and federal umbrella organizations of PIRG are closely aligned, sharing nearly identical activist priorities and even the same website structure and copy. ³ The national organization, U.S. PIRG, coordinates among its 47 state affiliates to maximize the impact of its liberal advocacy efforts. ⁶

Since 2017, TexPIRG has been led by Bay Scoggin, a Democratic Pary political activist and former field organizer for Organizing for America, ⁷ a national Democratic campaign apparatus now known as Organizing for Action (OFA) that focuses on left-of-center issues such as climate change, comprehensive immigration reform, preserving Obamacare, LGBT issues, abortion, and progressive economics. ⁸

Activism

TexPIRG  focuses almost exclusively on left-of-center priorities like weakening voting integrity requirements, combatting climate change, expanding public transportation, increasing government health care regulation, and enacting “net neutrality.” ⁴

TexPIRG is a member of Democracy Movement, ⁹ a collection of activist organizations based in Cambridge, Massachusetts that focuses on loosening laws relating to voting. ¹⁰  Other members of Democracy Movement include left-of-center organizations like the ACLU, NAACP, and the League of Women Voters. ¹¹ The top priorities of Democracy Movement including ending voter identification requirements, restricting the ability of states to keep up-to-date voter registration lists, expanding the franchise to felons, and expanding mail-in voting. ¹² Democracy Movement also supports statehood for the District of Columbia. ¹³

Environmentalist activism is another top concern of TexPIRG, which advocates “immediately and dramatically reducing fossil fuel emissions” before our society does “irrevocable damage to the planet in the coming decades.” ¹⁴ TexPIRG advocates ending the use of conventional energy and replacing it with energy produced from solar panels, wind farms, and batteries. ¹⁵ In line with these goals, TexPIRG focuses on further urbanization by increasing adoption of public transportation through use of more electric busses ¹⁶ and the creation of a subway system in Austin, Texas. ¹⁷ TexPIRG opposes highway expansion projects. ⁴

TexPIRG has also taken an extreme restrictionist stance on the COVID-19 pandemic. Nearly two years after the pandemic started as most states, including Texas, had lifted Covid-19 associated restrictions and as vaccines were freely and widely available, TexPIRG still advocated for six-foot social distancing and forming quarantine “pods” in order to limit social interactions to a minimal group of people. ¹⁸