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Wed Jun 23, 2010 at 04:18 PM CDT
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"In my opinion, we have no choice but to refuse the signatures." -- Green Party State Party Treasurer David Wagner
Breaking news in the ongoing Green Party petition drive scandal: it turns out corporate dollars were used to collect the signatures. From the Austin American-Statesman: Green Party signatures cost $532,500; were they legal? In a June 10 e-mail to other Green Party officials, state party treasurer David Wager said, “I was promised by a representative of Take Initiative America that the organization was not a corporation and that he would comply with all disclosure requests. Today I was informed that the organization is in fact a corporation and they will not disclose their donors. They claim that their collection of signatures and in-kind contribution was not political. I don’t agree. In my opinion, we have no choice but to refuse the signatures.”
To review what's currently going on...As the Lone Star Project has reported, the Green Party of Texas allowed out of state right wing activists to funnel money through a secret donor to a nonprofit organization in order to finance a signature gathering operation and qualify for candidates to appear on the Texas ballot. The Texas Democratic Party filed suit in order to force disclosure of the secret donor and block the improper use of corporate or other illegal funds to finance a ballot petition effort. - It has since been discovered that Rick Perry chief consultant, Dave Carney, has ties to Tim Mooney and the Republicans who have orchestrated this plan. Carney initially denied even knowing Mooney to the Dallas Morning News, then later admitted to the Texas Tribune that he did, in fact, know and work with Mooney in the past. (DMN: Perry political chief: May I amend my remarks?)
The entire Green Party signature scandal is coming closer and closer to the TRMPAC ordeal Tom Delay orchestrated in 2002, a scandal which will soon be headed to trial. Laylan Copelin with the Austin American-Statesman sums up the past, present, and future of the TRMPAC case in a story from last April, "After 8 years, DeLay case could be headed to trial"
Co-defendants of former U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay suffered a significant setback Wednesday in their quest to avoid a trial on charges that the trio conspired to launder corporate money during the 2002 elections. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals unanimously ruled that the lower state 3rd Court of Appeals erred when it accepted the co-defendants' arguments that the money laundering law did not apply to them because the funds involved were checks, not cash. The all-Republican court, in effect, said the lower court acted prematurely. The state's highest criminal court also dismissed the defendants' constitutional challenge that Texas' law banning corporate donations was too vague or overly broad to be understood. The decision is a crucial chapter in the eight-year saga, sweeping aside the constitutional challenges and putting the case back on a path toward a trial.
Is the green party signature scandal -- wherein corporate money was used -- TRMPAC part two? Time will tell...
Previously on BOR: |
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