The Chron kinda teased me with the headline of this front page story: "Possible violations of law found in state GOP money trail". The story, which says that a review of "more than 10,000 pages of state and federal campaign finance reports" found possible violations of state law in how corporate money was spent, never really gets into any details and thus doesn't move the ball forward. The only real new information I got out of this was the total dollar amounts of corporate and union cash - the two types of donations that are singled out under Texas law - by each party. In 2002, that was $5.7 million by the GOP and about $560,000 by the Democrats.
I suppose it's useful enough as an overview, and perhaps its timing is a sign that the reconvened grand jury is getting ready to make some noise. And it did have this little tidbit, which I've seen before but which bears repeating in light of recent revelations:
[Wayne Hamilton, former GOP executive director and now a special adviser to the party] said the Republican increase in corporate funds was the result of aggressive fund raising.That fund raising included $400,000 from two national nursing home chains that wanted caps on pain-and-suffering awards in neglect and abuse cases. The Legislature in 2003 passed such caps.