Texas lawmakers passed a law restricting use of private money for election administration almost two months after research showed that at least $36 million in grants financed by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg had the potential to alter the state’s political landscape dramatically.

Though prompted by the Zuckerberg grants, the new Texas law likely will prevent a flood of private money from multiple sources to pay for running future elections, the sponsor of the measure told The Daily Signal.

“Unless we get it stopped, I think we would have seen money coming in from many sources,” state Rep. Phil King, a Republican, said in a phone interview. “Uncontrolled, dark money of this nature is just very, very ripe for corruption.”

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, signed the bill into law June 12.

I just signed a law banning "Zuckerbucks" in Texas.

It bans private groups like the one supported by Zuckerberg from spending millions to administer elections like Zuckerberg & others did in Texas.

That is a government function not to be messed with by election influencers.
— Greg Abbott (@GregAbbott_TX) June 12, 2021

Texas became the seventh state so far to pass restrictions on private money going to election administration. The others are Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Kansas, and Tennessee, according to the Foundation for Government Accountability, a watchdog group that monitors the issue. //

Zuckerberg contributed $350 million to the nonprofit Center for Tech and Civic Life, which distributed the grants to local jurisdictions in Texas and 48 other states to run elections in 2020.

Some Texas counties flipped from red in 2016 to blue in 2020, according to the report. Tarrant County went to Trump in 2016 but flipped to Biden in 2020, with a 43% increase in Democratic votes compared with Trump’s jump of 18%.

Biden also flipped Hays County (the Austin metropolitan area) and Williamson County, with raw vote increases between 70% and 80%.

The Center for Tech and Civic Life gave between $36 million and at least $39 million from the Zuckerbergs to Texas jurisdictions, according to varying accounts.