December, 2004:

As noted yesterday, Republicans in Texas are once again threatening to remove the power to investigate election code violations from the Travis County District Attorney’s office to the Attorney General, presumably on the theory that they won’t have to worry so much about the fine points of corporate campaign cash with a fellow traveller in charge of enforcement. Partisan interests aside, I think there’s actually a decent case to be made for this. For one thing, the AG shouldn’t have any of the jurisdictional problems that Ronnie Earle faces:

The election code allows Earle to prosecute Colyandro because he lives in Austin. It also gives Earle jurisdiction over out-of-state defendants. But because Craddick and DeLay live in Texas, but outside of Travis County, their local district attorneys would have jurisdiction over election code violations.

Earle could argue for jurisdiction in Craddick’s case if he has a dual residence. It’s unclear if the speaker’s apartment provided in the Capitol would qualify.

Be that as it may, it seems to me that any Republicans who believe this change would eliminate what Henry Bonilla called the crackpot district attorney problem are being naive. Have we ever had a non-ambitious Attorney General in Texas? John Cornyn is now a Senator. Dan Morales ran for Governor. Jim Mattox ran for Senate. Greg Abbott is rumored to have his eye on David Dewhurst’s job. What’s a good way for an AG with aspirations to make a name for himself or herself? How about collecting the scalps of a few corrupt politicians? I think that’d play pretty well in whatever our equivalent of Peoria is. Why would any self-respecting Crusader for Justice pass up that opportunity?

Even if (God forbid) the Republican Party remains the only game in town at the state level for the next generation or so, I don’t think this will be the panacea they’re hoping for. Sure, the current AG would never have touched the TRMPAC case, but that’s because he’s up to his eyeballs in conflicted interests. Will that be true for the next scandal, or the next AG? And again, remember the nature of people who run for Attorney General. When the chips are down, their own ambition will trump the greater good of their party and its image. I think that will be even more true in the one-party-state scenario, since taking down a colleague may be the only way to create a job opening.

No, if the Republicans want to make sure that no one ever gets in trouble for throwing around corporate campaign contributions again, their best bet is to decriminalize it, as they’re also talking about doing. I think (I could be wrong here) that would necessitate a constitutional amendment, which would have to be approved by the voters in a referendum. I can just imagine how that puppy would get marketed – “Buying access: It’s not just a good idea, it ought to be the law!” Do you think they’d also remove the adjoining restriction on donations from unions, or will they simply tell us that corporate cash is Good and labor cash is Bad? I’d better stock up on batteries for my Unintentional Comedy Meter just in case.

Related to the previos item, John Colyandro, one of the three individuals indicted so far in the TRMPAC investigation, has filed a motion to dismiss the charges against him.

John Colyandro contends he couldn’t have improperly received the contributions because he wasn’t a candidate, officeholder or political committee.

Texas law states that only officeholders, candidates and political committees are capable of illegally accepting contributions.

The motion was made Tuesday by an attorney for the former executive director of Texans for a Republican Majority. That’s a political action committee with ties to Republican U-S House Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Sugar Land.

Colyandro was indicted in September, along with two other DeLay associates who helped raise money to secure a Republican majority in the Texas House in 2002.

Gregg Cox of the Travis County district attorney’s office told the newspaper he hasn’t reviewed Colyandro’s pleading but had been expecting such motions.

Clever argument on the surface. One would hope the DA’s office is not dumb enough to indict someone who by definition can’t have broken the law in question. We’ll see what the judge thinks.

Via The Daily DeLay, Sears has joined Diversified Collections Services in making a deal with the Travis County District Attorney’s office in the TRMPAC case.

Prosecutors have agreed to drop an illegal campaign contribution charge against Sears, Roebuck and Co. in exchange for the company’s cooperation with a state investigation of contributions to a Republican political action committee.

A Travis County judge signed off on the agreement today.

[…]

The agreement calls for Sears to cooperate with Texas “in its prosecution and investigation of any other person for any offense related to the corporate contribution” that Sears made.

The agreement also said that Sears has certified that it has enacted additional internal policies and adopted a plan to strengthen its policy against making illegal political contributions in any state. The agreement also said Sears will modify its company Web site to provide for public access and disclosure of corporate contributions made by Sears.

In addition, [Sears senior vice president Robert J.] O’Leary said Sears will contribute $100,000 to the University of Texas for a campaign finance law awareness program.

That’s two down and six to go. Who’ll be next to turn state’s evidence?

This pretty much speaks for itself.

Public Citizen is writing to provide the Department of Justice with significant new information regarding possible violations of 18 U.S.C. §201 (“Bribery of public officials and witnesses”) by current and former Westar Energy, Inc. executives and its D.C.-based lobbyists and current and former members of the U.S. House of Representatives. This new information has recently been uncovered in an investigation by the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct (“ethics committee”).

On June 17, 2003, Public Citizen submitted a complaint concerning possible criminal violations of anti-bribery statutes by lobbyist Richard H. Bornemann; Westar Energy (previously known as Western Resources) executives David C. Wittig, Douglas T. Lake, Douglas R. Sterbenz, Douglas R. Lawrence, Anita Jo Hunt, Caroline A. Williams, Richard A. Dixon, Kelly B. Harrison, Larry D. Irick, Peggy Lloyd, Bruce Akin, Paul R. Geist; and U.S. Representatives Tom DeLay (R-Texas), W.J. “Billy” Tauzin (R-La.) and Joe Barton (R-Texas).

There’s a lot more. Not that I expect it to go anywhere, unfortunately.

Meanwhile, via The Stakeholder and Greg, I see that Republicans in both DC and Austin are working hard to make sure that this sort of thing Never Happens Again.

In the aftermath of back-to-back ethics slaps at House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, House Republicans are preparing to make it more difficult to begin ethics investigations and could remove the GOP chairman who presided over the admonishments delivered to DeLay last fall.

A House leadership aide said a package of rules changes to be presented to the House when the 109th Congress convenes Tuesday could include a plan that would require a majority vote of the ethics panel to pursue a formal investigation. At present, a deadlock on the panel, which is evenly split between the two parties, keeps the case pending. The possible change, the aide said, would mean that a tie vote would effectively dismiss the case.

[…]

In Texas, state Republican legislative leaders and party officials are considering some maneuvers of their own in light of the investigation. One proposal would take authority for prosecuting the campaign finance case away from the Democratic district attorney in Austin and give it to the state attorney general, a Republican. Another possible move would legalize corporate campaign contributions like those that figure into the state case.

It’d be pretty amusing if the Republicans in the Lege gave that investigatory power to the Attorney General, and then the Democrats won the AG race in 2006, wouldn’t it? Wonder who they’d give the authority to next. My suggestion is the Montgomery County Commissioners’ Court. That ought to be reliably Republican for the foreseeable future.

Tom sent me an email with a link to Andrew Ferguson’s article on Jack Abramoff in the Weekly Standard. I’d seen the link before, but the getting around to reading and blogging about it part got lost in the holiday shuffle. I can’t beat Mark Schmitt’s take on the piece, but there are a couple of things to add.

First, as noted by The Stakeholder, there are some local angles to the Abramoff/Mike Scanlon/Ralph Reed story that could stand a bit of investigation. Despite the strong ties these three scoundrels have to Tom DeLay – Scanlon is DeLay’s former press secretary – the Houston Chronicle hasn’t touched this at all. Do an archive search on ‘Jack Abramoff’ + ‘TomDeLay’, and you’ll get four hits, all of which were articles picked up from the Washington Post. There may be nothing there, of course, but I rather doubt it.

Second, I got a good laugh out of this bit from the Ferguson piece:

After College Republicans, Abramoff brought the same theatricality to his other activist jobs. “His greatest strength was his audacity,” says the writer and political consultant Jeff Bell, who worked with Abramoff and Norquist at a Reaganite group called Citizens for America in the mid-1980s. “He and Grover [Norquist] were just wildmen. They always were willing to throw the long ball. Jack’s specialty was the spectacular–huge, larger-than-life, almost Hollywood-like events.” As the group’s chairman, Abramoff staged his greatest spectacular in 1985, a “summit meeting” of freedom-fighters from around the world, held in a remote corner of the African bush. Among the summiteers was Adolfo Calero, a leader of the Nicaraguan contras, and playing host was a favorite of the 1980s conservative movement, the Angolan rebel Jonas Savimbi, who fought bravely against the Cuban occupiers of his country but turned out, alas, to be a Maoist cannibal.

They must have had Alberto Gonzales do the background check on Savimbi. Coulda happened to anyone, you know.

Anyway, the Ferguson piece is a good read, so check it out. I’ve noted before that Lou Dubose and Jan Reid, the authors of The Hammer, think that the Abramoff/Scanlon Indian gaming scandal will be the thing that finally brings Tom DeLay down. I think it’s way too early to think that, or even to think that he will be brought down by anyone other than maybe the voters some day, but keep it in mind.

UPDATE: The Stakeholder adds on.

The Stakeholder points to this WaPo article which shows just how seriously the House Republican leadership takes its ethics.

House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert is leaning toward removing the House ethics committee chairman, who admonished House Majority Leader Tom DeLay this fall and has said he will treat DeLay like any other member, several Republican aides said yesterday.

Although Hastert (Ill.) has not made a decision, the expectation among leadership aides is that the chairman, Rep. Joel Hefley (R-Colo.), long at odds with party leaders because of his independence, will be replaced when Congress convenes next week.

The aides said a likely replacement is Rep. Lamar S. Smith, one of DeLay’s fellow Texans, who held the job from 1999 to 2001. Smith wrote a check this year to DeLay’s defense fund. An aide said Smith was favored for his knowledge of committee procedure.

This is like appointing Bonnie to be Clyde’s jailer. Why not just disband the Ethics Committee altogether and be done with it?

As Boffoblog noted, Lamar Smith‘s favorite thing to say to Tom DeLay is “Thank you sir, may I please have another?” Which is to say, he’s well qualified for the job.

UPDATE: Greg has a fine suggestion:

[H]ere’s a great idea for a reform measure that House Dems could offer … why not lead the fight for a rule that dictates of House members to refund all contributions from fellow members when under review with the Ethics committee? And why not fight for a similar one that dictates a refund to all donating members of the House should a vote for censure or worse reach the House floor?

Sounds good to me.

UPDATE: Silly me. The House Ethics Commission still has a purpose – to investigate Democrats for alleged violations committed in 1997. Payback time, baby! Thanks to N in Seattle for the reminder.

Boffoblog points me to this WaPo article updating the College Republicans fundraising scandal. I must say, I’m still waiting for someone to do a little forensic accounting and figure out where all the money went. As I noted here, it just doesn’t add up. I believe it’s not just the seniors who are getting ripped off here.

Boffoblog also points me to Pudentilla, who notes that Response Dynamics, the firm used by the CRNC for its controversial fundraising pitch, is no stranger to precisely that sort of controversy. There’s also a pointer to CRNCTruthCaucus, which appears to be the writings of an extremely disgruntled College Republican. He in turn points me to an update on Jack Abramoff, the College Republican alumnus and Tom DeLay crony who is currently getting grilled over his sleazy ripoffs of Indian tribes. Apparently, Abramoff’s old buddies with the CRNC gave him ten grand two years ago. Wonder what that was about.

Anyway. Here’s a precious little clip from that WaPo story on Abramoff:

Until the power lobbyist’s downfall this year, Abramoff spent about $1 million annually in funds largely provided by his tribal clients to lease four skyboxes — two at FedEx Field and one each at MCI Center and Camden Yards. Season after season, he kept them brimming with lawmakers, staffers and their guests, part of a multimillion-dollar congressional care and feeding project that even the brashest K Street lobbyists could only watch with awe or envy.

Lobbyists entertain lawmakers and their staffs routinely — so much so that congressional rules limit the extent of it to avoid the appearance of impropriety. But Abramoff and the lobbyists who worked for him took spending for this form of hospitality to unprecedented heights. They used tribal money, records and interviews show, to pay for events that appeared to be designed more to help House Republicans’ campaigns and Abramoff’s overall lobbying effort than the Indians’ legislative causes. Some members of Congress involved actively opposed Indian gambling.

“Jack Abramoff had one of the biggest schmoozing operations in town,” said Rob Jennings, president of American Event Consulting Inc., an organization that raises funds for Republicans.

[…]

Abramoff’s most powerful ally on the Hill, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.), another gaming opponent, held a fundraiser in the MCI Center box for the performance of the Three Tenors on May 7, 2000, according to the list of events maintained in Abramoff’s office. The list also shows he held an event in a box at FedEx Field on Sept. 18, 2000.

DeLay spokesman Stuart Roy said that DeLay’s fundraising aides remember sending out invitations for the Three Tenors event to reward donors and that the event probably occurred. There was no obligation to report the use of the box under federal law, he said, because the site was used for an event that benefited DeLay’s state political action committee.

The office found no record of the use of Abramoff’s box for a fundraiser at a Redskins-Dallas Cowboys game on Sept. 18, 2000, as listed in Abramoff’s records. “We don’t have anything indicating it was offered or utilized,” Roy said. “We just don’t know.”

Amazing how slipshod record-keeping can be when it needs to be, isn’t it? I just don’t know how that can happen. I just don’t know.

Check out the ad that the Public Campaign Action Fund is running in the Houston Press this week. It’d be cool to see more of that in the future. Nice job, folks.