Corporate Cash Testing Legal Limits - Grand Jury Inquiry into Tx. politic

[Dover]

Corporate cash testing legal limits

Grand jury inquiry into Texas political groups reverberating through the Capitol


Sunday, February 22, 2004

When it comes to campaign cash, state politics is not a poster child for restraint.

Although their federal counterparts must operate under the $2,000 limit per individual donation, state politicians argue they should be able to take as much money as possible as long as the public knows who gave it. Six-figure donations from one individual are not unusual in statewide campaigns, and legislators routinely collect five-figure sums from one supporter.

The Texas Association of Business and Texans for a Republican Majority, targets of a yearlong grand jury investigation, did not pour unprecedented sums of corporate money into the 2002 elections because candidates are having a hard time raising money from individuals. They did it, in part, because company executives and their lobbyists are more willing to donate their stockholders' money than their own.

In doing so, however, both organizations tested one of the few restrictions in the Texas campaign finance laws: corporate or labor dollars cannot be used as campaign expenditures. Call it the ban against using other people's money, stockholders' or union employees', without their consent.

They also added a layer of secrecy to Texas elections. The state's largest business organization is refusing to disclose which corporations financed its $1.9 million advertising campaign for the 2002 elections.

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http://www.statesman.com/news/content/auto/epaper/editions/sunday/news_04832633815aa1f500f8.html

[Dover]

1. Very few Democrats even running in Texas. No longer a choice of parties

As landmark political moments go, this one was subtle, yet significant enough to memorialize as another milepost in the Republican conquest of Texas.

At 1:57 p.m. Tuesday in Bexar County GOP headquarters, Republican Gov. Rick Perry pulled several sheets of paper from his blue speech box and announced his endorsement of fellow Republican Paul Green for a seat on the Texas Supreme Court.

What's significant is that there already is a Republican, Steven Smith, in the seat Green wants.

By endorsing Green, Perry became the first Republican governor of Texas to back a challenger to a GOP statewide officeholder, signaling the kind of intramural struggle that serves as a sure sign that a party has reached the level of dominance in which its primary is the de facto general election in some races. There are no Democrats seeking the Supreme Court seat now held by Smith. It's not the only contest devoid of Democrats in this year's election cycle that begins with the March 9 primaries. Early voting begins Monday.

Smith won the Supreme Court seat in 2002 after beating then-Justice Xavier Rodriguez, a Perry appointee, in the GOP primary.

When Texans go to the primary polls, they will see other evidence of the GOP's conquest of state politics.

Democrats in about one-third of Travis County will not even see a congressional race on their ballots. Eight GOP candidates are seeking nomination in Congressional District 10, a district that stretches to Houston and is so Republican that no Democrat is running.....>>

http://www.statesman.com/insight/content/auto/epaper/editions/sunday/insight_047321b4815a314e00c4.html

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