Took long enough but good news for the Doherty campaign.
The Red to Blue program highlights top Democratic campaigns across the country, and offers them financial, communications, and strategic support. The program introduces Democratic supporters to new, competitive candidates in order to help expand the fundraising base for their campaigns.
"The constituents of Texas' 10th Congressional District are demanding an end to McCaul's pay-for-play style of politics, and they deserve an independent leader who will fight for them in Washington," said Doherty. "I am proud to have the support of the DCCC to give a voice back to those who are shouldering the burden of a failed energy policy, a failed foreign policy and a government that has been asleep at the wheel while Wall Street bankrupted Main Street."
From DCCC Chairman Chris Van Hollen.
"Larry Joe Doherty is running a solid campaign and is committed to making things easier for middle class families in their districts," said DCCC Chairman Rep. Chris Van Hollen. "With less than 21 days to make his case for change to voters, the Red to Blue program will give Larry Joe the financial and structural edge to be even more competitive in November."
Larson supports a 23% national sales tax which result in a 23% increase in just about everything. That's why the DCCC has released this ad aptly called, "Lyle Larson: For Taxes. Not Texas".
I wrote earlier today about the DCCC filing a formal complaint against Republican Lyle Larson for failure to follow FEC regulations in his first television advertisement.
Thomasenia Duncan, Esq.
General Counsel
Federal Election Commission
999 E Street, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20463
Re: Complaint against Lyle Larson and Lyle Larson for Congress
Dear Ms. Duncan,
I write this letter to file a complaint pursuant to 2 U.S.C. § 437g(a)(1) against Lyle Larson, a candidate for the 23rd Congressional District in the state of Texas, and his campaign committee, Lyle Larson for Congress ("Respondents").
Respondents have plainly violated the Commission's disclaimer requirements for television communications. In a television advertisement that is airing on multiple stations in Larson's district, Larson failed to include a written statement saying that he approved the advertisement. By refusing to follow the law, he has ignored Congress's mandate that he stand fully by the assertions made in the advertisement, even while seeking office in that same Congress. Because paying for a television communication that does not include the required written statement represents a clear violation of federal law, the Commission should act immediately to investigate this matter and impose penalties against him and his campaign.
THE FACTS
Congressional candidate Lyle Larson's campaign committee has paid for a television advertisement that is airing on multiple stations in Larson's district. The advertisement is available here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
The written disclaimer that appears on screen at the end of the advertisement states as follows: "Paid for by Lyle Larson for Congress." There is no written statement indicating that Larson approved the advertisement.
ARGUMENT
When a candidate authorizes a television communications, he must include a written statement indicating that he approved the communication. See 2 U.S.C. § 441d(d)(1)(B)(ii); 11 C.F.R. § 110.11(c)(3)(iii). The statement must appear in letters equal to or greater than four percent of the vertical picture height and must be visible for a period of at least four seconds. See 11 C.F.R. § 110.11(c)(3)(iii). This requirement is in addition to the requirement that the communication include an audio statement that identifies the candidate and states that he approved the communication, to ensure that voters who might not hear the audio of the ad can still discern that the candidate approved it. See id. § 110.11(c)(3)(i), (ii).
The purpose of the requirement is to require candidates to demonstrate their support for the statements made in the advertisement. Larson did not do this. Rather than obey the law and take full responsibility for his ad - which compares Members of Congress to barnyard swine - Larson chose instead to follow his own, invented rules, and take lesser accountability for his ad's claims. The result is a clear, black-and-white violation of federal law.
When, in the first election cycle that McCain-Feingold was in effect, a Texas Congressional campaign issued mailings with the proper disclaimer, but failed to put the disclaimer in a box because of vendor error, the Commission prosecuted the matter through the enforcement process. It extracted a $6,000 civil penalty with the threat of litigation, even though the campaign had long since been defunct. See MUR 5547. This blatant violation warrants no lesser treatment. With three election cycles of McCain-Feingold under their belts, Larson and his sophisticated media consultants do not have the excuse of having to figure out how to follow a new law.
For these reasons, the Commission should immediately find reason to believe that Larson and the Committee violated the law, and seek civil penalties commensurate with the amounts spent on the advertising.
Lesson number one to all current and future candidates, don't lie to voters.
Lying Lyle Larson, Republican Candidate in Texas' 23 Congressional District, can't seem to keep his term limits promises, but that doesn't stop him from making them.
Last week, Larson wrote on his campaign blog and sent out an email to supporters pledging to only serve six terms if elected this November.
Larson also said he would support a constitutional amendment which would limit the terms of Members of Congress. Yet, Larson already broke the term limit promise he made back in 1996 during his first run for his Bexar County Commission seat, by running for a third term after pledging not to.
"Lying Lyle should stop making promises he doesn't intend to keep," said Texas Democratic Party Chairman Boyd Richie. "Let the voters beware, Lyle Larson will go back on his word about term limits and say he simply changed his mind."
Sleuthing from the Texas Democratic Party found the details.
According to the San Antonio Express-News, Larson said "he would serve no more than two terms." [San Antonio Express-News, 10/24/96] But in 2004, Larson broke his promise, running for a third term. Larson also went back on his word that he would resign from his post on the Bexar County Commission to run for the 23rd District Congressional seat, because he "changed his mind" and is now staying on as Commissioner. [San Antonio Express-News, 5/21/08]
"Texans in Congressional District 23 need a congressman they can trust to stand up for veterans, children and hard working middle class families," added Richie. "That's why I'm confident voters will re-elect Congressman Ciro Rodriguez and reject Lying Lyle's most recent false promises."
Not only is Larson not telling the truth is blatantly breaking the law.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) announced today that it has filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) against Republican (TX-23) for his clear failure to follow FEC regulations in his first television advertisement.
Not sure how you can trust a guy to write laws when he doesn't even adhere to them. Jennifer Crider, spokesperson for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee said simply, "Voters in Texas' 23rd district can't pick and choose which laws they follow and neither should political candidates. Lyle Larson chose to break the law by failing to take full responsibility for his political ad's claims. We are filing this FEC complaint to hold Lyle Larson accountable for his clear violation of federal law."
Ciro's ad on the other hand touts real achievements and follows the letter of the law by having all disclaimers.
Last week the DCCC started airing an ad clarifying Republican Pete Olson's economic stance.
The ad goes up at the perfect time. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a D.C. based group, will endorse Olson simply because he is a Republican. Not normally a big deal, but sources in the Lampson campaign point out that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce gave Lampson their Spirit of Enterprise award during the primary.
In addition, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce recently endorsed the Abercrombie/Peterson energy bill, a piece of legislation which Lampson had a huge role in crafting. While the chamber is going with their partisan leanings and endorsing Olson they're also endorsing Nick Lampson's energy plan designed to address our energy crisis and bring down gas prices.
Too bad the Olson tax plan would raise gas prices a dollar and hurt every day Texans.
The Lampson campaign pointed to the National Conservation, Environment, and Energy Independence Act to bring contrast between Lampson and Olson (a.k.a DeLay 2.0).
Reaching Across the Aisle - The National Conservation, Environment, and Energy Independence Act (H.R. 6709) Congressman Lampson has led bi-partisan efforts to reach compromise on a comprehensive, broadly supported bill. As a core member of the Abercrombie-Peterson Energy Working Group, Lampson helped write key measures and lobbied for additional R & D funding to be included in the legislation. The group adopted HR 6067, the Invest in Energy Independence Act, introduced by Lampson in May, as a major component of HR 6709. The Abercrombie-Peterson bill, introduced with 47 original co-sponsors, including Lampson, now has 119 co-sponsors, all added within 1 day of introduction before recess. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has endorsed the legislation and is encouraging Members to become co-sponsors.
Lampson has been a dramatic improvement over Tom DeLay, and Olson represents everything wrong with DeLay and the Republican Party.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) is using a full court press on the Republican Party this cycle.
A recent Roll Call article focuses on two races we have had our eyes on for a long time- Larry Joe Doherty vs. Mike McCaul and Mike Skelly vs. John Culberson.
Roll Call over simplifies to the two races saying:
Culberson's 7th district encompasses much of Houston's western suburbs and is among the most conservative in a state that remains a Republican stronghold. But Culberson's opponent, businessman Michael Skelly, has attempted to position himself as a conservative Democrat and has vowed to spend $1 million of his own money on the race. As of June 30, he had nearly doubled the incumbent in cash on hand.
McCaul's 10th district, stretching from greater Houston's solidly conservative Harris County in the east to the Austin region's Democratic-leaning Travis County in the west, has the potential to be politically problematic for Republicans.
The Republican Party and President Bush are incredibly unpopular (even in Texas), and both McCaul and Culberson like to highlight their close ties and friendships with this administration. The Republican's are losing control of the Texas House. They are losing more down ballot races than ever before. Their most vocal advocated tell voters their economic woes are all in their head.
Democrats on the other hand are better funded than they have been in nearly a decade. There is more passion and focus on the Democratic Party than there has been in years.
Maybe that is why "Republican operatives who follow Texas Congressional races concede that neither the 7th district nor the 10th will be the easy ride they've been for the Republicans since being redrawn in 2003 as part of the redistricting of Lone Star State House seats engineered by then-House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas)."
While Julie Shutley, the spokes person for the National Republican Congressional Committee argues that McCain helps McCaul and Culberson, I am at a loss to figure out how. Barack Obama received more votes in the primary than John Kerry or Al Gore received in the 2004 or 2000 general election. We have more candidates running down ballot in both districts, which will encourage Independents and disenfranchised Republicans to vote for one or more Democrat and prevent them from voting straight ticket.
"Even in Texas, one of the reddest states in the country, people are fed up," DCCC spokeswoman Kyra Jennings said. "Combine this desire for change with the strong campaigns both Michael Skelly and Larry Joe Doherty are running, and it offers Democrats unique opportunities in Texas this year."
[...]
But Skelly's team believes a district whose economy relies heavily on the energy industry will respond favorably to a candidate with his background, and they predict that fiscal conservatives disappointed with Congress' record on spending and the deficit could help him win an unexpected victory. Skelly, on cable television with his second ad, is already courting voters; Culberson intends to wait until after Labor Day to launch his air war.
At the end of that sentence, read, "Skelly is already on TV because he has the money, support, and network to be able too... Culberson doesn't so he is forced to leave Skelly on TV by himself."
While CD-07 is decidedly moderate or leans conservative, the 10th district is one of the Tom DeLay fajita strip districts. It is a "classic gerrymander" district drawn up as a "majority Republican seat by cobbling together a collection of conservative-leaning rural counties and anchoring them on either side by portions of growing counties."
The district is less Republican today than it was yesterday and is probably the most rapidly trending seat in Texas.
Doherty's optimism is [anchored in] the increasing number of Democratic voters in Travis County, which is a liberal enclave in an otherwise sea of red, and the fact that McCaul's Democratic opponent in 2006 garnered 40 percent of the vote while being outspent by the incumbent $1.1 million to $65,000.
Doherty's strategy is to court moderate voters who are most interested in a change in Washington, D.C., while maximizing turnout in Travis County and working for a split in the rural counties. His campaign believes McCaul has not developed a close relationship with his constituents, and it plans to exploit that. McCaul's campaign vehemently denies that contention.
Again Roll Call gets it wrong. Travis County is not a island of blue in a sea of red anymore. Hays County, Williamson County and Bastrop County are all purple counties turning rapidly blue. People are fed up with Tom Craddick's pay to play model and Tom DeLay's unconstitutional Republican protection plan. Texans understand that the do nothing Culberson and Mike McCaul, the son-in-law to Clear Channel mogul Lowry Mays, don't represent them.
While Roll Call thinks it can't be done, it is clear that together, we can win two more congressional seats in Texas.
The DCCC has reserved $35 million in 31 congressional districts nationwide. While $22.5 million of the $35 million is allocated to seats currently held by Republicans, the only Texas seats in the buy are held by incumbent Democrats Nick Lampson and Ciro Rodriguez.
The buy in Lampson's district is one of five nationwide that is over $1 million, which could be a product of the expensive Houston media market as much as anything else.
Ciro Rodriguez will have $707,000 worth of ads in his district.
Ideally, I would have liked to see the DCCC make buys to support both Larry Joe Doherty and Michael Skelly. The reality is that, at this point, the high costs of running ads in the Houston area (coupled with the fact that Doherty's district spans both the Austin and Houston media markets) means the DCCC may continue to focus only on Lampson and Rodriguez.
The quickest way to change that, however, and to show the DCCC that both Doherty and Skelly are extremely viable candidates is to contribute to them.
It was Skelly's stellar fundraising numbers that allowed him to make the DCCC's Red to Blue List, as KT reported last month.
Last night's victory in TX-23 was a huge one, the majority of the credit for which must be placed at the hands of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. The DCCC spent over a million dollars in the last month helping build out Ciro's campaign and the hard work of Adrian Saenz, Meghan Gaffney, and Vanessa Gonzalez put him over the top. Their work as well as that of others that went unseen, was critical in making this a winning race.
The TDP, while constrained by the McCain-Feingold laws, did its part and devoted voter information, a secondary field program in 6 counties, some fundraising, and a few statewide e-mails (though woefully inept in that department as usual). Still, it's more than I'd ever have expected out of the TDP prior to Boyd Richie and should be congratulated.
And of course, there are thanks to be made to LULAC & MALDEF who fought ongoing legal battles to keep early voting going, True Blue Action, the TexRoots, Labor, and many other players.
But the one group that would have you believe they did it all and were the first out of the gate and into bloggers inboxes with their "look what we won" e-mail, would be the Lone Star Project. While they have done plenty of good stuff in the past, their release last night and this falling-over-themselves piece is best summed up by McBlogger.
I wasn't going to write anything about this, but goddamn if there wasn't an email last night, mere hours after Ciro Rodriguez won, from LSP taking credit for the damn thing. Matt [Angle], I'm going to terminate my address on your f***ing list if you don't stop with the auto-fe****io. Seriously, how much did LSP raise for Ciro? From my perspective, this was the candidate, DCCC, LULAC and MALDEF. LSP didn't even like the LULAC map that produced this district; now you're the ones responsible?
The winners are never going to call bullshit, so it falls to us. Matt you do a hell of lot and there is no need to take credit for everything. It distracts from the real work ahead and breeds resentment among people who work really hard, cycle after cycle. People you're going to need at some point in the future.
Sometimes, modesty is an asset.
Indeed. Now on to the rest of the analysis and impact of this race as that's off the blogs' collective chest.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) began airing the following television ad in two markets in the runoff election set for December 12th between Ciro Rodriguez and Henry Bonilla. Watch it here or below.
I'd take that as a sign that the DCCC poll came back fairly positive if they are going to invest in this manner. They have already committed their national field director Adrian Saenz, internet/fundraising staff in Meghan Gaffney, and campaign spokesperson Vanessa Gonzalez.
Also today, John Courage sent an e-mail out to his campaign list asking people to help call voters using ciro.onlinephonebanking.com and donate to Ciro's campaign. In the past few hours he's raised over $1200.
The DCCC is on the ground in TX-23. They have made amazing progress in getting Democrat Ciro Rodriguez to actually abide by their rules for this short election period seeing as he's low on cash and institutional support. In other terms, Ciro has actually been on the phone doing call time which in itself is short of a miracle, just to put it in perspective.
Meghan Gaffney as some will remember from Paul Hackett's race in OH-02 is there now as well as Adrian Saenz, the DCCC's National Field Director (who if I'm not mistaken is from San Antonio as it is).
There is a poll in the field right now to determine where things stand on that front.
The election date cannot be set earlier than this Friday from what we've been told, though there is an expectation that Gov. Perry will do so then. There is an open state house seat in Texas which also has to have an election date set - a dead Republican incumbent beat her Democratic opponent on Nov 7th creating a vacancy which forces an open special election in HD-29 near Houston. That race is discussed in this post.
