Burnt Orange Report

More On TAB Activities

By Vince Leibowitz

Though most of it is a re-hash of what's already known, the Austin American Statesman has an article in Sunday's editions concerning the Texas Association of Business and some new information relating to John Colyandro and Ben Bentzin.

The article notes that Colyandro, one of the primary masterminds behind TAB's massive 2002 direct mail campaign aimed at defeating Democratic incumbents, also worked as a consultant to Bentzin's unsuccessful State Senate campaign during the same cycle. Bentzin is presently running for an open seat in the Texas House.

The article notes:

Ben Bentzin, a Republican Senate candidate in 2002, said last week that political consultant John Colyandro produced his campaign's mailers while Colyandro was helping the association with its direct-mail efforts, including a pro-Bentzin mail advertisement paid for with secret corporate money.

Joe Turner, Colyandro's lawyer, said Colyandro did nothing wrong in his dual roles working for a campaign and working with a group that was supposed to steer clear of campaigns.

"He had a lot of different clients during that period of time," Turner said. "They were totally unrelated in most instances."

Indeed, in the world of politics, it's not unusual for a consultant to work for more than one campaign. But the state's largest business organization, through four years of criminal investigation, always insisted that it followed its lawyer's warning not to coordinate its mailings with any campaign.

That the association had an outside campaign consultant helping could undercut its defense that the mailers were protected free speech intended to educate voters about issues, not political ads for candidates.

"In the last couple years I haven't seen any evidence of coordination," Austin lawyer Roy Minton said Friday, speaking of his time representing the business group. Told of Colyandro's dual roles, Minton said, "I just don't deal with hypotheticals based on hearsay."

Bentzin, who is currently running for an open state House seat and has not been accused of any wrongdoing, and association President Bill Hammond said they were unaware of Colyandro's dual roles.

"I had no idea at all," Hammond said.

Until Bentzin this week volunteered Colyandro's role with his 2002 campaign, the public would not have known because Bentzin paid Colyandro indirectly. Bentzin paid Austin printer Bob Thomas a fee for printing the mailers, which Thomas shared with Colyandro.

Last fall, a grand jury indicted the association on 128 felony counts, accusing it of illegally spending $1.7 million of corporate money on 4 million mailers that were sent to voters to help elect or defeat candidates.

State law generally bars the use of corporate money in elections.

The association has said it did not have to disclose the corporate money, mostly received from insurance companies, to the public because the mailers did not urge voters to support or oppose candidates. The association also says it never coordinated the message, timing or design of the mailers with any campaign.

On Friday, Hammond did not retreat from that assertion. "Our efforts weren't coordinated with that (Bentzin) campaign," he said.

The association's publicist, Chuck McDonald, who produced most of the mailers, testified in a civil trial last year that Colyandro was "part of the TAB team" that met frequently in McDonald's office to discuss the creation of the mail pieces.

"He had input on discussions. . . . All (in the room) would talk to me about the message and, you know, the strategy and those kinds of things," McDonald said.

Colyandro has been indicted, along with U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay and another DeLay aide, on charges that he laundered money and illegally used corporate money in the 2002 elections through his role with the Texans for a Republican Majority political committee.

Aside from being just another juicy revalation, however, I'm not exactly sure how this will play out, mainly because TAB can't really be in a worse situation than it already is. Second, it comes as no surprise (and I think I'd already heard it before anyway) that this kind of thing went on in Bentzin's campaign since it's already been revealed, in the TRMPAC scandal (sister to this one) that consultant Kevin Brannon worked on the campaigns of State Reps. Bryan Hughes (R-Mineola) and Dan Flynn (R-Van).