Bob Perry and Charles Butt helps stop immigration laws in Texas for their business.

Specifically two people who donate to Republicans who wanted to keep their cheap labor.

While Republican party infighting and rivalry between the two chambers of the legislature were factors in its demise, shocked conservatives and Tea Party supporters blamed so-called "Country Club" Republicans with close ties to business.

"I don't, for one minute, blame the Democrats for this one," an angry Mike Openshaw, Texas Tea Party activist, told Reuters on Wednesday. "The chubbing was done by the Republican Austin machine establishment this time, which is just absolutely stunning considering the election of 2010."

In that election, Texas voters, much like the rest of the country, swept Republicans into office in historic numbers. For the first time in well over a century, Republicans enjoy a supermajority in the Texas House and just one seat shy of that in the Senate. Among those swept into office in Texas were several Hispanic Republicans.

Two powerful Texas businessmen joined the lobbying against the bill, legislative sources told Reuters.

Houston homebuilder Bob Perry and grocery chain magnate Charles E. Butt hired one of Austin's most powerful lobbyists to oppose the legislation.

Bob Perry has long been known as the top Republican donor in Texas. Last year alone, he gave some $7 million to political candidates, mainly Republicans, according to the Texas Ethics Commission. Some $2.5 million of that went to Governor Rick Perry. Bob Perry is not related to the governor.

Butt, who owns the H-E-B grocery store chain, donated close to $1 million to political candidates on both sides of the aisle last year, according to the commission.

"They had real reservations about it," Bill Miller, the lobbyist hired by the influential businessmen, told Reuters. "They wanted some changes made, and we expressed the reservations they had about it to members, which kind of slowed it down,"