Have you heard the one about the five Republican legislators who have been paying their spouses rent money out of their campaign funds? Which is a no-no, though they all claim that it was separate property and thus technically okay under the law.

Most of the action on this took place over the weekend, though the initial shots were fired earlier than that by a group called the Texas Values in Action Coalition, who accused State Rep. Toby Goodman (R, Arlington) of spending over $100K in this fashion since 2000. BOR rounds up some of the action (more here), with a special focus on Rep. Gene Seaman of Corpus Christi, who took the extra steps of claiming two homestead exemptions and then blaming the whole mess on his wife. And of course, nobody can put something like this into perspective the way that PinkDome can. Check 'em out.

UPDATE: Poor Rep. Seaman. Nobody loves him.