November 17, 2005
RPT Gets Deferred Prosecution
By Phillip Martin
No, they weren't being investigated for an MIP. The Republican Party of Texas agreed to stop certain campaign practices, in order to temporarily suspend an investigation into whether or not their use of corporate money for certain expenditures was legal or not. From the Statesman:
The Republican Party of Texas avoided prosecution Thursday by agreeing to stop using corporate money in several ways being investigated by Travis County Attorney David Escamilla.
Escamilla's investigation, which is similar to allegations being pursued by Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle against U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay and the Texas Association of Business, is put on hold through March 31, 2007. In return, the Republican Party agrees to stop using corporate money the way it did during the 2002 election. The party's administrative expenses spiked five-fold to about $5.6 million that year.
...
Under the agreement, called deferred prosecution, the Republican Party of Texas agreed not to use corporate money for so-called issue ads that mention a state candidate; to follow federal campaign finance restrictions against using corporate money in the final 60 days of an election to aid a federal candidate; to file the party's campaign finance reports electronically; and to specifically describe every transaction on its reports.
The RPT noted that this action is not an admittal of wrongdoing, but merely a temporary agreement to suspend the investigation. I would like to note that he who has nothing to hide should have nothing to fear.
Posted by Phillip Martin at November 17, 2005 01:24 PM
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And as soon as the Texas legislature figures out a way to get rid of the Public Integrity Unit,
things will quickly go back to "business as usual" which in itself should be the primary reason for every Democrat in Texas to wake up and smell the manure in the rose garden.
"This is not an admittal of wrong doing". Right, we get it, over $5 million in corporate money, much of it spent on blatantly political activity, but how could that be wrong at the Tom DeLay, Ralph Reed, Jack Abramoff school of ethics? So why did the RPT stop now? They can say what they want, but the RPT copped a plea and DeLay should follow suit and save taxpayers a lot of time and money.
I hope the poster above isn't Ed Martin, who personally lobbied the Legislature to specifically allow political parties to accept and spend corporate and labor money in a very generous manner.
To the nameless one, I write openly over my name that your characterization is grossly inaccurate. As TDP E.D. long ago (it's been 10 years since I left), we probably did testify on a bill in the late 80's or ear;y 90's that codified the current restrictions on corporate expenditures, because prior to that time, they were only outlined in a vague advisory letter written by Secretary of State George Strake during (I think) the first Clements administration. We never supported opening up the use of corporate funds for "generous" political purposes or any other purposes other than those defined by the law today. I am confident TDP has always reported those funds fully and that such reports will show that such funds were used only for adminstrative expenses and allowable expenses related to primary administration and conventions - all internal, non-political matters. In the decade since I left TDP, I have been stunned at the level of corporate money that has flowed into the RPT and operations like those run by TRMPAC and TAB. We never saw anything like that, and simply thought it best to outline was was allowable clearly in law.
