Why is it that Texans get stuck with gawd awful lawmakers who are completely out of synch with the majority of sentiments and beliefs held by the American people? Why do they continue to serve as endless sources of shame, ignorance and embarrassment to those they supposedly represent? Why do they continue to bring the scorn of the rest of the nation into our living rooms on an almost daily basis? Tom Delay, Karl Rove, Alberto Gonzales and George W. Bush, Phil Gramm,Harriet Miers and Karen Hughes comprise the short list of Texas jackasses. It will take at least four Presidential Administrations to clean up after them. We will endure very hard times in the process, thanks to the brilliance of the Texas Brigade of Douche Nozzles.
Today we may have discovered one of the reasons why we have such a large number of Texas Republican jackasses and crooks who hold office. To be fair and honest, there are likely Texas Democrats in office who are jackasses and crooks as well.
For the last few weeks we have been listening to wall-to-wall coverage 24/7 about the flamboyant governor of Illinois, Rod Blagojevich, and pay-to-play politics. As we all know by now the Illinois governor is charged with criminal conspiracy for attempting to sell President Elect Barack Obama's U.S. Senate seat. Rod Blagojevich is clearly another crooked and arrogant politician who thinks he is above the law. But at least this one found himself impeached by the Illinois House.
It is nice to know some states have lawmakers who have an ethical spine where such blatant corruption and beyond the pale pay-to-play politics are concerned. Too bad Texas is sorely lacking in this area. But one has to remember the Party that is running the state at this time, although not all Democratic politicians would receive A's in ethics and integrity departments either.
When the Blagojevich scandal broke, several of the cable TV talking heads and pundits appeared especially outraged by pay-to-play politics and so I promptly sent off an email to MSNBC and CNN and suggested that if they are so livid about pay-to-play, they ought to send their research staff down to Texas to see how it works in a state where purchasing elections and pay-to-play is business du jour. Apparently other folks from around the U.S. contacted the media with the same request. Chris Matthews of Hardball responded with a chart that listed the most offending states. Texas is among them.
The statement below is issued in response to a document that has been circulating around the state today. The document (.pdf) is a memorandum of recommendations by a Texas Ethics Commission task force for potential recommendations the agency may elect to make to the Texas Legislature.
Vince Leibowitz, Chair of the Texas Progressive Alliance, issued the following statement concerning the Texas Ethics Commission's recently distributed recommendation concerning blogs:
"Regulating Texas blogs would be regulation with out representation. Regulation that doesn't protect the rights of citizens is not good government.
For a state agency that twice ruled it was appropriate for a trustee of the Texas Employee Retirement System to disclose a monetary gift from swiftboater Bob Perry as simply a "check," to suggest that blogs should be subject to regulation is absurd.
Blogs are a form of political communication that should, by and large, remain unregulated. Independent citizen journalists and bloggers perform a valuable function in the political arena by prompting and promoting political discourse--on both sides of the aisle.
Wilhelmina Delco and the Texas Ethics Commission dismissed the Dukes Campaign frivolous complaint filed against Brian Thompson.
"I would like to thank Ms. Wilhelmina Delco and the other members of the Texas Ethics Commission for acting quickly to dismiss this frivolous and politically motivated complaint in a prompt and professional manner," said Democrat Brian Thompson. "The complainant all but acknowledged to a member of the media last week that he had ulterior motives for filing the bogus complaint. It is very reassuring that Ms. Delco and her fellow Ethics Commission members acted so quickly to ensure that a bogus ethics complaint did not impact this election."
The Dukes campaign asserted "Thompson did not clearly state his ads were political ads and who paid for them, even though his commercials ended with a message saying 'political advertisement paid for by the Brian Thompson campaign'"
In contrast, the Dukes campaign still has questions looming on an ethics complaint that was filed against Rep. Dukes for not reporting 8 years and $89,000 worth of credit card expenses is still pending before the Texas Ethics Commission. Despite repeated promises by Ms. Dukes to correct her 8 years worth of improper ethics reports, she still has yet to file a single corrected ethics report.
According to a Thompson press release this bogus complaint filed by a Dukes supporter against Thompson is just one more example of the misleading tactics being used by a desperate campaign. Dukes's record of deception includes:
continuing to run ads that lie about Thompson's voting record
denying voters the opportunity to see how she spent $89,000 on 18 different credit cards, for which a legitimate ethics complaint is still pending
offering three different excuses for why she failed to pay her taxes.
It's a shame that a seven-term incumbent has resorted to lying about everything from my voting record to the reason why she didn't pay her taxes," said Thompson. "She needs to be held accountable for not telling the truth."
Ethics and politics, seems contradictory. Texas has recently become notorious for suppressing voters, paying for luxury condos through campaign coffers, and allowing for lobbyist like Bill Ceverha to write down “gift” or “check” on public reports.
All the organization and institutions that are suppose to protect voters are instead creating new loopholes to drive semi-trucks through.
Te irony is that the laws are clear. You can do just about whatever you want to hide your supporters and it appears that it will only get easier.
The Texas Ethics Commission (TEC) has created a draft proposal that would make the businesses of buying our state’s elected officials easier.
Texas politicians who receive suitcases full of cash may not be required to report the amount of it, according to a draft ruling by the Texas Ethics Commission.
Under the proposal, candidates for state offices could satisfy Texas disclosure laws by simply calling it "currency."
Austin Democratic State Rep Elliott Naishtat seems more than happy to tell the public who supports him, how much they like him, and what they gave him. Naishtat has already announced he will file a bill that will require a "description" of a gift as the "fair market value" of the gift.
Friday the TEC is meeting to make a case for their proposal, but the most surprising part is how the Republican Party is constantly changing the rules to cultivate corruption at our state capitol.
Instead of holding elected officials accountable by making the process more transparent, they are hiding behind words like, “check”, “gift”, and “bucket of money”.
Let’s see what the lobbyist, Republican-Mega Donors, corporate presidents, and the rest of the lot are buying with their money. It has once been said that you can tell a lot about a candidate by the money they accept. The same goes for the money they hide.
