Texas Progressive Democrat and congressional candidate Julie Oliver has been critical of anyone, especially her opponent Rep. Roger Williams (R), who has applied for and received PPP loans as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The PPP loans have saved thousands of U.S. businesses of all sizes from closing shop, but Oliver has used the fact that Rep. Williams’ family car dealership in Texas received a PPP loan for political gain.
“For Williams, it has never been about fighting for this community,” tweeted Oliver And when the pandemic hit, the first thing he did was funnel bailouts to his own car dealership in Weatherford, while the businesses that make our community what it is lost everything.”
The Texas data only includes loans up to 150K -- it does not include any data on PPP loans that @RogerWilliamsTX took to pay family members at his personal business in Weatherford.
— Julie Oliver (@JulieOliverTX) July 6, 2020
The hit on Williams is justifiable and above board because his family business did receive a loan, but so is the hit on Oliver, whose family has also benefitted from PPP loans.
Is this political hypocrisy on Oliver’s part? Probably.
According to public records, Julie Oliver and her husband Matt Oliver benefitted from PPP loans after both of their respective employers received the loans, loans that are specifically given out to help employers pay their employees.
In other words, Oliver and her husband had their salaries paid for by the very same loans she has attacked Williams’ car dealership of receiving to pay its employees.
The non-profit and Independent ProPublica website has compiled a database of those businesses that have received PPP loans and Civitech and Notley Ventures, both of which are listed on Oliver’s congressional financial disclosure forms, are in the database.
Oliver’s disclosure form lists that she works for Notley Ventures and her husband works for the Austin-based tech company Civitech. Both companies received between $150,000-$350,000 through the COVID-19 program.
Oliver's husband's employer Civitech also benefitted from another financial subsidy of sorts. According to the Federal Elections Commission (FEC), Civitech was paid $40,145 for "Direct Mail" fundraising services by the Julie Oliver for Congress campaign.
