The Austin Chronicle has an interesting piece out today, "Dukes Under Siege".
This is a longer story about Dawnna Dukes and her Democratic challenger Brian Thompson. Let's get some of the disclosure out of the way. I support Brian Thompson and I am not affiliated or paid by the campaign. As long as Craddick D's continue to support Tom Craddick, I will do whatever I can to defeat them in the primary.
Brian Thompson has been endorsed by the Texas Progressive Alliance and we are asking any person motivated to take back the Texas House to donate to the slate or Brian Thompson directly. And there are a lot of reasons why.
In Richard Whittaker's piece, Dukes continues to rationalize her continued support for Craddick by pointing to legislative committee appointments and Craddick's political back scratching. However, to this date, Dukes has not pointed to a single legislative achievement for House District 46 or Austin that she couldn't have achieved with out Craddick. What we do know is she does like the Republican money that has come into her campaigns because of her support for Craddick.
According to KVUE, Dukes has received over $10,000 from assorted Republicans, Craddick loyalists, and Conservative PACs.
Rep. Dukes's "top donor is HillCo PAC, which is in part funded by the largest (Republican) political donor in the nation, homebuilder Bob Perry. Perry gained notoriety for helping pay for the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth ads against Democrat John Kerry in the 2004 presidential race. Dukes also counts among her contributions a $1,000 individual donation from Perry himself, as well as $1,000 from Bill Miller, a longtime Craddick friend and consultant.
Maybe this money is the reason Dukes continues to support Tom Craddick. Just today she reaffirms her possible support for Tom Craddick.
Even now, she says, she would not rule out backing Craddick as speaker again next session.
This loyalty and support to Craddick and his money are the reasons a site run entirely by minorities call Dawnna Dukes a Craddick D. This combined with Thompson's vision for a better Austin and strong progressive credentials are the reasons the Texas Progressive Alliance, Lon Burnam, and six democratic clubs in Austin have all endorsed Brian Thompson.
This is in stark contrast to Dawnna Dukes, who rather than embracing her own political party and House Democratic Leadership, she attacks. Colin Strother says:
[Democrats for Reform] spokesman Colin Strother says the group is simply a loose affiliation of 15 House members, committed to pursuing a progressive agenda, who signed off on a 16-point agenda to protect and extend vital services. "This doesn't have anything to do with Craddick and had some pretty ambitious and progressive goals," he said. The list was compiled, he said, because there had been no agenda set by the Democratic leadership.
Rep. Helen Giddings said in their final press conference that, "this is the reason we made the votes we made the very first day of session." A veiled quote on their vote for Tom Craddick. (Because I know it will come up, the reason I have the quote written down is because I worked at the Capitol for House Leader and MALC Chairman Pete P. Gallego during the 80th session).
Last night, KVUE News in Austin ran a story exposing the fact that Dawnna Dukes's largest donors are the same Republican moneymen who funded the insulting and offensive 'Swift Boat' ads attacking the honorable military service of John Kerry. Why would they do this? To keep Tom Craddick in power of course.
According to the KVUE News report (a must watch video), "The latest campaign finance reports show Craddick supporters are happy to help Dukes."
In the KVUE piece, Andrew Wheat of the non-partisan good-government group Texans for Public Justice elaborates:
Again, and again, and again, you see the very same people who are giving to Tom Craddick are giving to Dawnna Dukes.
"Again, and again, and again, you see the very same people who are giving to Tom Craddick are giving to Dawnna Dukes," said Andrew Wheat of Texans for Public Justice, an organization that studies the influence of money in politics.
Democratic primary voters in House District 46 need to know that Rep. Dukes is being funded by the same Republican moneymen who funded the 'Swift Boat' campaign and continue to give millions of dollars to the Republican Party of Texas, Tom Craddick, and Rick Perry.
According to documents filed with the Texas Ethics Commission, some of Rep. Dukes's largest contributors include the following Republicans and corporate interests:
Bob Perry - The largest Republican donor in Texas, who contributed more than $4,000,000 to the Swift Boat attack ads
Harold Simmons - The largest importer of nuclear waste in Texas who also gave more than $3,000,000 to the Swift Boat attack ads
Hillco - A Republican lobby shop and PAC closely allied with Speaker Craddick. According to this report from TPJ, Hillco was a conduit for Bob Perry money making its way to Craddick D's.
Bill Miller - A lobbyist who has served on Speaker Craddick's transition team and acted as Speaker Craddick's spokesperson during the previous Speaker's race.
John Nau - A Perry appointee who joined the Governor, voucher proponent Jim Leininger, and right-wing ideologue Grover Norquist, on Governor Perry's infamous yachting trip to the Bahamas - has given hundreds of thousands to Republican politicians and causes.
By her own admission, some of Rep. Dukes's largest donors are Republicans who gave more than $7 million to fund the disgusting Swift Boat attack ads against John Kerry. If she will take money from these Republican moneymen, are there any Republicans Dawnna Dukes won't take money from?
Is Craddick funneling Bob Perry money through Hillco to Craddick D's?
The October monthly report filed by Hillco PAC with the Texas Ethics Commission is a fascinating read. I'd encourage all of you to take a look at it on the Texas Ethics Commission web site.
According to the ethics commission filings, and a recent Texas for Public Justice Lobby Watch report, Hillco PAC received $86,666 in contributions from 6 individuals, 5 of whom are Hillco employees. The 6th contributor to the Hillco PAC was none other than the largest Republican donor in the state of Texas, Houston homebuilder Bob Perry.
His $75,000 contribution to the Hillco PAC represented 87% of their contributions for the entire month.
Hillco spent around $90,000 in political expenditures for the month. Most of their contributions were a standard $1000 contribution to various state reps. and senators. However, 4 contributions raised some eyebrows for me.
Why did Hillco give $10,000 to Kevin Bailey, $10,000 to Dawnna Dukes, and $10,000 to Kino Flores. What do these three State Reps. have in common? I can think of three things; 1) They are all Craddick D's who have pledged their "absolute" loyalty to Speaker Craddick, 2) They are all potentially facing primary opponents, and 3) Each of them knows a direct contribution from Bob Perry wouldn't go over so well with Democratic primary voters in their deep blue district.
It has been well documented that primary opponents have already surfaced against Bailey and Flores, and the Austin political community continues to be full of chatter regarding a primary challenge to Dukes. Just ask Ron Wilson, Glenn Lewis, Jaime Capelo, Roberto Gutierrez, Al Edwards, what their primary voters thought of their allegiance to Speaker Craddick. Even Robert Puente made the decision to retire rather than fight in a primary, and he had over $200,000 in the bank. (Apparently loyalty to Craddick can be a costly decision.)
Obviously, Buddy Jones and Bill Miller are flowing Bob Perry money through their PAC to Craddick D's who appear to be in jeopardy. I assume this arrangement is carefully orchestrated by Craddick to make sure the Craddick D's who are facing democratic primary challenges have a way to get resources from one of his most prominent moneymen (Perry) without disclosing that on their own ethics filings. Considering the millions of dollars Bob Perry has contributed to candidates (mostly R's but also some D's), why didn't he just give the 10k directly to Kevin Bailey and Kino Flores and Dawnna Dukes? Why did he choose instead to funnel that money through Buddy Jones' PAC?
In a response to a Muckraker blog article I published on 5/9/07 (see below), Hillco Partners, one of the most powerful lobby firms in Texas sent a letter to threaten me with a lawsuit.
Nathan Hecht like to play in the ethical gray area. Over a week ago, our very own Todd Hill pointed out how Bob Perry had bought justice (or at the very least a judge).
A week before that, Alex Winslow pointed out the details of who gave Hecht "donations" and how much he received.
The TDP has said enough is enough.
According to their press release, Texas Democratic Party Chair Boyd Richie joined the call for State Supreme Court Justice Nathan Hecht to recuse himself from a case involving Republican mega-donor Bob Perry.
