Ronnie Earle has put in a lot of time and effort over the past three years, trying to hold accountable people and organizations he and several grand jurors think broke Texas law.
Back in the early 20th Century progressive era, Texas led the way in outlawing corporate and union money in political campaigns.
A more recent law was aimed at keeping the selection of a House speaker with the members of the House. It says a corporation or group "may not contribute or lend or promise to contribute or lend money or other things of value to a speaker candidate or to any other person, directly or indirectly, to aid or defeat the election of a speaker candidate."
But U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay and now-Speaker Tom Craddick in the Texas House, aided by another old buddy, Bill Hammond, in 2002 oversaw the dumping of a truck full of corporate money on selected legislative campaigns. They insist it was completely within the law.
The money went largely for direct mail and television ads to promote Republicans running for legislative seats and to blast their Democratic opponents. Those who directed its spending maintain that it was for administrative purposes, which are legal, even though a considerable portion of it was spent on polling, direct mail and other things normally regarded as campaign expenses.
The results of the 2002 elections in 2003 were that Craddick indeed was elected Texas House speaker; DeLay accomplished his goal of getting the Republican-dominated Legislature to perform congressional redistricting to pad the Republican majority in the U.S. House; and Hammond saw the Legislature make it even tougher for consumers to sue corporations - especially insurance companies.
The gall of the bunch that solicited and funneled corporate money into taking over Texas government was - and is - awesome. But at least some of the players, and the organizations that gathered the corporate money, are being indicted on felony charges.
It has taken almost all of the three years before the statute of limitations runs out to get some of it done. But Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle and some grand juries have indicted the group which Hammond heads, the Texas Association of Business (TAB), Texans for a Republican Majority Political Action Committee (TRMPAC), three of DeLay's operatives who ran TRMPAC and several corporations.
As of this writing, even though TRMPAC and TAB have been indicted, the principal masterminds of the 2002 election takeover - Craddick, DeLay, Hammond and another buddy from the Texas House in the 1980s, Mike Toomey - have not. Whether any or all of them will be should be known by the end of September.
For Earle, the state's chief ethics enforcer for almost 30 years, the main reason he ran for re-election in 2004 was because he thought the Legislature in which he once served was being corrupted.
The indictments "involve the misuse of corporate money to influence Texas elections in 2002," Earle said in a statement. "They contain allegations that TAB and TRMPAC worked together in a complicated scheme to circumvent the election code by funneling massive amounts of secret corporate wealth into elections."
TAB and TRMPAC used much of the corporate money - now revealed as coming primarily from insurance companies - to pay for direct mail in two dozen targeted legislative races. Most were won by Republican candidates aided by the expenditures.
The inquiry took so long, Earle said, primarily because of "TAB's prolonged efforts to stymie the investigation and hide the details of its use of corporate money from the grand jury as well as from the public. TAB fought the investigation in court and repeatedly appealed the decisions when the courts ruled against them."
Indeed, lawyer Andy Taylor made a lucrative cottage industry of seeking to stall the investigation, even though judges ruled against him every step of the way. But he managed to delay the prosecution until after the congressional redistricting map rammed through by DeLay and Craddick in 2003 by the legislators elected in 2002, was an accomplished fact. The new map, as intended, unseated several incumbent Democratic congressmen.
Taylor, election law attorney Ed Shack, who signed off on TAB's efforts, and others have insisted that the solicitation and spending of corporate money by TAB and TRMPAC was completely within the law. Indeed, after the recent round of additional indictments, TAB e-mailed an appeal for financial help, insisting it had done nothing wrong.
"Everything TAB did as part of its public education program was in complete compliance with the laws of Texas," said the appeal from Don Shelton of TAB. "We will mount an extensive and expensive defense of TAB's and every Texan's First Amendment right - the right to criticize our government and our elected officials. Please do not abandon us in this hour of need. Please help our struggle with your wallet and voice."
Roy Minton, the go-to attorney for politicians and political organizations in trouble, said TAB's conduct "was limited to its absolute right to inform the public, and in every case their conduct was reviewed and approved by an election lawyer (Shack) with 30 years of experience in the field."
Perhaps ironically, the circumstances of the TAB and TRMPAC takeover of the Legislature in 2002 may wind up adjudged the biggest Texas legislative scandal since the Sharpstown stock fraud and banking scandal that erupted in the early 1970s.
Among the so-called "Dirty Thirty" House members who in 1971 voted for an investigation of then-House Speaker Gus Mutscher was Tom Craddick.
Minton said he believes courts "will confirm that the conduct of (TAB) was legal and consistent with the First Amendment rights of every citizen."
Two of DeLay's TRMPAC underlings - John Colyandro and Jim Ellis - face sentences up to 99 years in prison on money-laundering charges. The indictments say they laundered $190,000 through the Republican National State Elections Committee that wound up in seven targeted Texas House races.
There was a golf outing recently near the nation's capitol to raise money to pay lawyers defending the DeLay operatives. If nothing else, the legal charges against Colyando and Ellis may test their loyalty to those higher up the political food chain.
And given the fact that Speaker Craddick couldn't accomplish dealing with the tangled Texan school finance system, the loyalty of Republican House members to Craddick may also be tested.
You can contact Dave McNeely at dmcneely@austin.rr.com or (512) 458-2963.
