The Citizens for Integrity and Accountability Foundation is a right-of-center Texas-based advocacy group created to oppose Texas House Bill 4806 and Texas Senate Bill 30, legislation in the 2025 Texas state legislature that would limit awards in certain civil suits. It claims the limits serve as handouts for the Chinese Communist Party, “woke corporations,” illegal immigrants, and child-gender-transition providers. ^{1 2}

Critics have alleged the group is linked with the Texas Trial Lawyers Association, a trade group for trial attorneys. ³

Background

The Citizens for Integrity and Accountability Foundation is a right-of-center advocacy group based in Texas that was created in 2025 to oppose Texas House Bill 4806 and Texas Senate Bill 30 and its author Republican State Senator Charles Schwertner. ¹ As of May 2025, there are no published records regarding the tax-exempt entity status of the Citizens for Integrity and Accountability Foundation as either a registered political group or nonprofit organization. Critics of the group noted that early followers of the group’s Twitter/X account had affiliations with the Texas Trial Lawyers Association and the Democratic National Committee. ³

The Citizens for Integrity and Accountability Foundation opposes legislation that would impose a limit on civil damages awards, describing such policies as “hand outs to – among others – woke corporations, the Chinese Communist party, doctors and hospitals who perform transgender surgeries, and illegal immigrants.” ¹

Ad Campaigns

The Citizens for Integrity and Accountability Foundation runs campaign ads that address individual Texas state senators and representatives, advising their constituents to pressure them into opposing Senate Bill 30 and House Bill 4806 in the 2025 Texas legislative session. ² It makes claims that Chinese companies, vaccine manufacturers, and transgender transition providers for children will not be held accountable for harm caused against Texans because the bills would limit awards for civil damages, describing the limits as protections for the criticized groups. ^{4 5 6}

The bills would institute a series of changes to policies affecting lawsuits against medical providers. Amongst the changes include requiring defendants to serve a notice of intent to dispute the “the reasonableness of the amounts charged or necessity for health care services;” it defines noneconomic damages as “damages that, in reasonable probability, can be expected to be incurred after the date of the judgment;” it limits the recovery of past medical expenses to amounts paid or if they have not been paid, then the limit would be “150 percent of the median amount paid by nongovernmental third-party payors to health care providers for the same types of services provided to the injured individual”; and it limits pre-judgment interest to the economic losses occurred on the date that they were offended. ^{7 8 9}

The bills would also require a unanimous jury decision to award noneconomic damages for physical pain, suffering, mental or emotional pain, or anguish in a civil suit. They also add a list of stipulations for what classifies as eligible noneconomic damages and that if certain types of noneconomic damages exceed various thresholds, that a trial court “shall state the legal and factual support for the amount of noneconomic damages awarded to a claimant in a judgment if a defendant requests remittitur of noneconomic damages awarded.” ^{7 8 9}

People

As of May 2025, the only person with provable ties to the Citizens for Integrity and Accountability Foundation was Chris Marston, a campaign finance lawyer based in Virginia, whom the website lists as its treasurer. ^{1 3} In 2016, CNN reported that Marston was subjected to controversy due to being a common officer of Make America Awesome and numerous other Republican political action committees opposing Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. Marston responded to the controversy by stating that he only functioned as the treasurer of Make America Awesome, claiming to engage exclusively in accounting and administrative work. He stated his work is “mostly limited” to paying invoices. ¹⁰

1. “About.” Citizens for Integrity and Accountability Foundation. Accessed May 18, 2025. https://www.ciaf.co/about.
2. Citizens for Integrity & Accountability. YouTube. Accessed May 18, 2025. https://www.youtube.com/@TXIntegrityandAccountability.
3. McCaig. Mark. “Trial Lawyers, Soros Bankrolled PAC to “Stop MAGA Republicans.” The Texas Voice. Accessed May 18, 2025. https://www.thetexasvoice.com/trial-lawyers-soros-bankrolled-pac-to-stop-maga-republicans/.
4. Citizens for Integrity and Accountability. “Protect Texans from Dangerous Vaccines.” YouTube, April 8, 2025. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYRtihxtdN4.
5. Citizens for Integrity and Accountability. “Don’t Let China Mess with Texas.” YouTube, April 8, 2025. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiIbPEsH3SY.
6. Citizens for Integrity and Accountability. “Protect Our Children from Predators.” YouTube, April 8, 2025. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1p4pUPjxSk.
7. Strickland, Tim, and Hannah Soto. “Texas House Bill 4806: What You Need to Know.” Texas Law Blog, April 3, 2025. https://www.texaslawblog.law/2025/03/texas-house-bill-4806-what-you-need-to-know/.
8. “89(R) HB 4806 – Introduced Version – Bill Text.” Texas Capitol. Accessed May 18, 2025. https://capitol.texas.gov/tlodocs/89R/billtext/html/HB04806I.htm.
9. “89(R) SB 30 – Introduced Version – Bill Text.” Texas Capitol. Accessed May 18, 2025. https://capitol.texas.gov/tlodocs/89R/billtext/html/SB00030I.htm.
10. Moody, Chris. “Why do dozens of GOP super PACs have the same official address?” CNN. June 22, 2016. https://www.cnn.com/2016/06/22/politics/super-pacs-same-address.