David Porter, the little known Republican nominee for the Texas Railroad Commission, has been the treasurer of the Texas Republican Legislative Campaign Committee (TRLCC) since 2006. That's when school-voucher activist James Leininger used Porter's PAC as a $2 million vehicle to attack the GOP incumbents who had opposed Leininger's agenda. Most incumbents survived the Leininger-funded primary challenges but the episode highlighted the overt attempt by one man with unlimited money to try to buy a half dozen seats in the legislature for his pet issue- school vouchers.
Created by GOP consultant Jeff Norwood, GOP activist Bill Crocker and Porter, the now-dormant TRLCC PAC may provide Texas' best-documented case of a candidacy operating as an almost wholly owned subsidiary of a single PAC, consultant and donor. As if losing every newspaper endorsement to Democrat Jeff Weems, wasn't enough of a reason to vote against David Porter, here is another.
"The dark shadow of corruption of our judicial system hangs over this case," Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle said Monday, referring to the Texas 3rd Court of Appeals opinion that Tom DeLay's money launderers didn't really launder money because they used checks. Drug dealers throughout the state can rejoice. Turn those street dollars into checks and, well, you're safe as a crooked politician.
Despite the fact that turning ill-gotten cash into checks is a favorite laundering tactic of drug dealers and political criminals alike, the court said checks aren't "funds" under Texas law, and so transactions involving them can't be prosecuted.
The case involves indictments against two of DeLay's associates in the notorious 2002 campaign financing scheme that also resulted in DeLay's indictment and forced resignation from Congress. Earle's strong comments came in an appeal of the bizarre, Alice-In-Wonderland 3rd Court opinion.
There is no better example of the sickening corruption that has infected the Texas Courts from top to bottom since they became dominated by special interests who also control the legislative and executive branches. The courts are out of balance, and the corruption so thoroughgoing, so accepted as business as usual, that it can be hard to grasp.
But it is destroying the rule of law here, denying average Texans access to justice as the elite special interests who bought these judges escape accountability and responsibility for the harm they do all of us.
Compared to two years ago, it appears that voucher sugardaddy James Leininger has pulled back a bit (so far) in his donations to candidates for state office. Leininger is the state's biggest financial supporter of private school voucher schemes. (You can read more about Leininger in a 2006 Texas Freedom Network Education Fund report on the religious right in Texas.) Vouchers take money from public schools to pay for tuition at private and religious schools.
Over the years Leininger has poured millions of dollars into the campaigns of pro-voucher Republicans, including current Texas Gov. Rick Perry. Leininger has funneled a lot of that money through political action committees. That strategy can give him and his hired hands more control over the campaigns of candidates he supports.
So far in 2007-08 election cycle, however, Leininger has given only about $815,000 to Republican candidates and PACs, according to reports available on the Texas Ethics Commission Web site. That compares to nearly $4 million Leininger had donated by this point in the 2005-06 cycle. More than $2.35 million of that money two years ago went to the Texas Republican Legislative Campaign Committee, a PAC that targeted five House incumbents for defeat in the Republican primaries because they opposed private school vouchers. Another $620,000 went to The Future of Texas Alliance PAC, which backed House Republican incumbents who supported vouchers.
Of course, Leininger's attempt to buy a Legislature that would finally pass a voucher scheme failed in 2006. He defeated only two anti-voucher Republican incumbents. In addition, a number of pro-voucher GOP incumbents - including then-House Public Education Committee chairman Kent Grusendorf, R-Arlington - lost their re-election bids.
Leininger hasn't fared much better this year. For the second time in a row, gobs of his money failed to unseat state Rep. Charlie Geren, R-Fort Worth. (Geren, a strong supporter of public schools, famously said two years ago that he wouldn't "whore for Leininger" and vote for vouchers.) This year Leininger gave $100,000 to Tom Annunziato's failed effort to defeat Geren. Annunziato's campaign got another nearly $70,000 from Empower Texans PAC, which itself has received $100,000 from Leininger.
Leininger also ponied up more than $70,000 for the failed re-election campaign of state Rep. Nathan Macias, R-Bulverde. Leininger bankrolled Macias' successful effort to unseat anti-voucher state Rep. Carter Casteel, R- New Braunfels in 2006. Macias, who also got about $80,000 this year from Empower Texans PAC, narrowly lost his Republican primary last March.
Although his spending so far is less than usual, we would be surprised if Leininger doesn't spend more money in support of pro-voucher candidates in the fall.
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?
Forgive me if this isn't still fresh "news" -- but I'd thought these tapes were long ago released. I had no idea this was still going on.
In 2005, there was a great deal of discussion that the influential millionaire, James Leininger, was holding private meetings with members in a room off the back hall of the Texas House. The Observer requested those videos, to determine whether or not a man who has spent millions of dollars on his pet issue -- school vouchers -- was, in fact, in the back halls of the Capitol. So now, two years, later, why haven't those tapes been released? The latest Texas Observer editorial:
he Texas Department of Public Safety has now spent more than two years and almost $166,000 in lawyer fees fighting a Texas Observer request to release information we believe should clearly be made public. Attorney General Greg Abbott agrees. A state district judge agrees. The state public records law is on our side...
On October 24, in a courtroom at the University of Texas at Austin, DPS will try again to keep the information secret, this time in an appeal before the Third Court of Appeals. If that fails, and it probably will, we have no doubt DPS will go for a fourth strike by appealing to the state Supreme Court.
This is patently absurd, especially since DPS is claiming they can't release the tapes because they are "protecting us from terrorists" -- despite the fact, as the Observer article points out, that those cameras are in plain sight to anyone who walks in the back hall. So unless Leininger is a terrorist, the DPS needs to stop wasting the taxpayer's money and hand over the tapes. Now.
A director and the founder of medical technology company Kinetic Concepts Inc. sold 153,500 shares of common stock, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing Thursday.
In a Form 4 filed with the SEC, Dr. James R. Leininger reported he sold the shares for $63.01 to $64.04 apiece Tuesday and Wednesday.
I wonder what the good, neo-conservative doctor is doing with an additional $10 million. It is striking that since February 25, 2000, James Leininger has spent $8,984,351.21 of his own money to support out of touch candidates like Carole Keeton Strayhorn, Ben Bentzin, Talmadge Heflin (now employed by Leininger at the conservative think tank Texas Public Policy Foundation), Eugene Seaman, and Jack Stick. Those are just some of the losers he has wasted his money on.
What this does show is a renewed commitment to shoving vouchers down our throats and forcing unnecessary constitutional amendments on to the ballot year after year.
Who will he support this year? We do know he had $10 million more to spend on conservative, anti-choice, anti-education radicals… and that’s a lot of money.
We have removed the Texans for Public Justice (TPJ) report because of questions pertaining to how the report was done. TPJ has amended the report twice since our post went up. Both times, newly elected Democrats like Paula Hightower Pierson, Valinda Bolton, Ellen Cohen, and Juan Garica were proven to have done nothing wrong.
The purpose of the study is admirable, to track extravagant travel by elected officials paid for by lobbyist, the primary methodology used is too faulty for us to keep the study on our main page. Sadly, the data collected appears to have been sloppy at best.
While controversy surrounds the study, some facts are irrefutable. Rep. Mike Krusee is at fault.
Rep. Mike Krusee, R-Williamson County, a "lobby favorite." Krusee, chairman of the House Committee on Transportation, took nine lobby-funded trips in the period reviewed, 2005 and 2006 through the eve of the November elections, the report said.
For instance, J. McCartt, a lobbyist whose clients include contractor Fluor Corp. and PBS&J, an engineering firm, flew Krusee to Las Vegas to deliver the keynote address at a PBS&J toll summit after the 2005 regular legislative session.
Krusee's office issued a statement Tuesday stating that he "learns from other parts of the country and innovative industries about how to get traffic moving, how to improve safety and how to build roads in cost-effective ways."
Training from groups like EMILY's List and Annie's List is not the same as PBS&J flying Krusee to Vegas or James Leininger taking Rick Perry to the Caribbean.
Per KT's request: xposted from CapitolAnnex, with a couple ofchanges at the end.
When people with disabilities and politics meet, it is a touchy subject.
When millionaire voucher advocates are so desparate to get a "leg up" for their pet projects as to exploit the needs of handicapped children, you know they are in dire straits. (See a post of mine from yesterday , where I discussed this).
Nevertheless, this is a subject that must be addressed and I'll tread as lightly as I can.
This is perhaps the most dangerous of all the voucher plans that has been proposed to date. Why? It is, for lack of a better word, "warm and fuzzy." Who doesn't want to help children who suffer from this terrible condition? What lawmaker wants to see a mailer sent out in their district that says, "Your Senator voted against kids with Autism." It's a hard bell to unring.
Were you as astounded as I was to read the article in the Austin American Statesman this morning about the dismal performance of the Employee Retirement System?
If the year ended Sept. 30, the employee fund's investment return of 9.6 percent was in the bottom 10 percent of $1 billion-plus public pensions tracked by Callan. Returns were similarly dismal for the two-, three- and five-year periods ended Sept. 30.
Attaboy!
I guess the bottom 10% is exactly the kind of return you should expect when a BANKRUPT LOBBYIST is appointed to the ERS Board? Yep, you guessed, bankrupt Bill Ceverha again.
As a future state employee, I'd like to personally thank Speaker Craddick for that stunningly brilliant appointment. I'm glad to see him putting the best interest of Texas employees and retirees over his own personal politics. After all, who's more qualified to manage $23 billion than Tom DeLay's indicted treasurer who cooked the TRMPAC books and broke state laws in the process.
Even though the investment performance was dismal, maybe we should give bankrupt Bill the benefit of the doubt.
Perhaps he was too busy counting his "gifts", and cashing those checks from Bob Perry, Harlan Crow, Boone Pickens and Earl Nye to do his due diligence this past year.
According to George Antuna’s “family values”, drinking and driving is a perfectly acceptable practice, as is drunken quality time in the back seat of a car with a lady other than your wife. If his indefensible position on school vouchers, his lavish devotion to Jim Leininger, or his “service” to KBH and Rick Perry weren’t enough to disqualify him from public office, perhaps the two attached police reports are.
On two separate occasions, George Antuna- Republican candidate for State Representative in House District 118- has exhibited the sort of reckless judgment that seriously undermines his ability to faithfully serve the constituents of HD-118.
According to the first attached police report, between 2:16am and 5:15am in the early morning of June 21, George Antuna and a lady friend of his (5 feet 4 inches, 195 pounds, oy) were pulled over by the police in Selma after a long night of imbibing and carousing and who knows what else. Antuna’s lady friend was neither his wife nor the mother of his twins. Rather curious, George.
During the police stop, George Antuna was told to stay in the car. Antuna’s lady of the evening tried the ol’ “do you know who he is?” routine, pointing to Antuna and telling the cops, “He works for Rick Perry." Can’t a drunk girl in a truck with a Rick Perry staffer just get on down the road? Not so fast my friend…
According to the police report, “I detected a strong odor of an alcoholic beverage from Antuna. I believed Antuna was intoxicated and unable to operate the truck.” Woops. Now, we wouldn’t want to embarrass Governor good hair by getting arrested for DWI, would we? The police officer described Antuna as having slurred speech and “bloodshot and glossy” eyes. If I were him, the thought the ass whipping coming from the wife would make my eyes bloodshot too.
Rather than take the bullet (Republicans love to refer to this treasured quality as accountability), Antuna pulled a Gene Seaman and dropped his lady friend under the bus. Though, to Antuna’s credit, at least this woman was neither his wife nor the mother of his twins.
The police arrested Antuna’s lady friend for driving while intoxicated. They drove him to the police station so he could sober up and get a ride home.
What a great dad – leave the wife and twins at home, throw back a few, get loaded with the lady friend and fall asleep in the truck at 2:00 in the morning. Gotta love those Republican family values…
