| Key Point: By ignoring some important disclosure portions of the Texas Elections Code, Senator Hutchison's campaign may have begun down a slippery slope where bad habits have grown from simply unprofessional to possibly illegal. We've documented Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison's mistakes in the past -- whether it is her dramatic fall in the polls, or when her campaign makes her look small at her press conferences. The Statesman's Jason Embry wrote more about her "rocky start" in this morning's First Reading: Hutchison, for her part, did not take questions from the Texas press on Monday except for a very brief avail with local TV in Houston that her staff quickly ended... The first event got off to a rocky start Monday — it started almost an hour late, the crowd was small and the public-address announcer could not pronounce La Marque.
Yet, as much as we enjoy watching Senator Kay "Coward" Hutchison stumble and bumble through her campaign, she may have gone so far in her mistakes that she's actually begun to break the law -- or, at the very least, is treating the law with reckless disregard. Sunday, Senator Hutchison launched a YouTube video announcing her campaign. At the end, the announcer says, "Kay Bailey Hutchison: Governor. For Texas" as this image appears on the screen:
Notice that the words "Kay for Governor" do not appear on the screen. (The same is true of the video she has hosted on the front-page of her website.) The following is the text of Section 255.006 (c) of the Texas Election Code: (b) A person commits an offense if the person knowingly represents in a campaign communication that a candidate holds a public office that the candidate does not hold at the time the representation is made. (c) For purposes of this section, a person represents that a candidate holds a public office that the candidate does not hold if: - (1) the candidate does not hold the office that the candidate seeks; and
- (2) the political advertising or campaign communication states the public office sought but does not include the word "for" in a type size that is at least one-half the type size used for the name of the office to clarify that the candidate does not hold that office.
To make this perfectly clear, let's walk through this point-by-point: - The entire section of the code applies to campaign communications (which includes oral communications) and broadcasting.
- Senator Hutchison does not hold the office of Governor.
- Senator Hutchison does not include the word "for" anywhere on her advertising; therefore, she in no way clarifies that she does not hold the office she is seeking.
- This section of the Texas Election Code applies to a candidate's committee, as stated earlier in this section of code, Sec. 255.001 (2).
Isn't that a violation of the Texas Election Code? Although the words "for" and "Governor" never appear on the screen, which may avoid the discussion of "type size" in the code, the announcer clearly says, "Kay Bailey Hutchison. Governor. For Texas," a phrasing that obviously violates the intent of the law by giving the impression she is Governor instead of saying "for Governor," so as to clarify that Hutchison does not hold the office of Governor. My understanding is that, in the past, there have been sworn complaints against candidates up and down the ballot for not including these words in their campaign advertising and that fines have been levied against those candidates. I'm trying to do some research to find some examples, but it is definitely something I always expect to see in campaign materials.Now, Senator Hutchison's campaign may get by on a technicality; perhaps they know some loophole I don't. But the intent of the law appears to be pretty clear: to keep non-incumbents from portraying themselves as incumbents, which she is clearly doing through the voice-over announcer. At the very least, this is another example of Senator Hutchison's perpetual "rocky start" to this campaign. But it could be a lot more serious this time -- her campaign may have begun down a slippery slope where bad habits go from unprofessional to illegal. The Governor's mansion is not a retirement home, and even though Senator Hutchison is one of the few career politicians to hold her current statewide office longer than Rick Perry, that doesn't mean she gets to pretend she's already Governor and ignore campaign laws. We'll be following up on this story as we learn more. |
