This op-ed by Ed Shack, an “attorney specializing in First Amendment law and state and national election and campaign laws and regulations” makes the case that no one really knows how to follow campaign finance laws because it’s all so complicated. He does a pretty good job of it, too, which makes the omission from his byline that he represents the Texas Association of Business, one of the main targets of Travis County DA Ronnie Earle’s investigation into misuse of corporate campaign donations, that much more glaring. Whether through indifference or incompetence, the Chron’s editorial page has a very blemished history of printing op-eds by people who aren’t the disinterested observers their bylines claim them to be. See “Rushing, David” for an earlier and equally egregious example.
The Chron also printed Rep. John Carter’s fact-free attack piece on Rep. Chris Bell on page one of the Outlook section. For whatever the reason, it doesn’t appear to be online, so you’ll have to take my word for it or buy a copy of the dead-tree version yourself. If you’d like to give the Chron some feedback about printing ad hominems, send an email to [email protected].
On a side note, this unsigned editorial from yesterday asked why Bell’s complaint merely mentioned Tom DeLay’s Bacardi fixation as a footnote. Good question, though a better question might be “why hasn’t the Chron done any real reporting on the DeLay/Bacardi connection?”