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Date Posted: 12:47:37 03/26/03 Wed
Author: Kathy
Subject: The most shocking part if this is...aw, it ain't that shocking.

This is Texas, after all.

Big Bidness done bought the election.

Election ads draw Earle's scrutiny
Texas Association of Business officials face grand jury subpoenas

By Laylan Copelin

AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF

Friday, January 17, 2003

Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle is investigating which corporations financed a $2 million advertising campaign to influence 24 hotly contested legislative elections and whether the Texas Association of Business illegally coordinated the efforts with Republican campaigns in those races.

Earle's office on Thursday issued three grand jury subpoenas seeking records related to the advertising blitz, including communications between the business group, its corporate donors and the legislative campaigns the association endorsed.

The association, which has touted the effectiveness of its ads in last year's campaigns, has declined to disclose the sources of the money for the television commercials and mailings. The group said it was educating voters but not electioneering. State law prohibits the use of corporate money in political campaigns.

"According to its (own) press release, the Texas Association of Business collected millions of dollars in political contributions from various sources, including corporations, and then used that money to influence elections," said Rosemary Lehmberg, Earle's chief assistant. "Texas law specifically prohibits corporations and labor unions from making political contributions."

The widening investigation now draws the spotlight to the association's corporate members and to the political campaigns set up to help elect members of the Legislature, including several in Central Texas.

The association distributed ads in races involving newly elected House members Jack Stick and Todd Baxter from Travis County, as well as the losing campaigns of state Senate candidate Ben Bentzin of Austin and Rep. Rick Green of Dripping Springs. The group endorsed those candidates.

Andy Taylor, the business group's lawyer, said his clients will cooperate with the investigation.

"We feel confident that after they review the documentation, they will conclude we acted within full compliance of the law and everything was constitutionally protected free speech," Taylor said.

State law prohibits candidates' campaigns from coordinating with outside groups that release issue ads. Taylor said that didn't happen.

Several of the candidates backed by the association, including Stick, Baxter and Green, could not be reached for comment Thursday night.

Bentzin said the group did one mailing in his campaign against Sen. Gonzalo Barrientos, D-Austin. He said there was no coordination.

"The first I ever saw it was when it came in the mail," Bentzin said.

The grand jury subpoenas were issued for Association President Bill Hammond; Don Shelton, the group's director of information systems; and Bob Thomas with Thomas Graphics, an Austin company that printed the mail pieces. It requires them to provide all records since Nov. 1, 2001, including correspondence, mailing lists, memos, journals, copies of the advertisements and other related information. The grand jury proceedings will be closed. Jurors will weigh all the information to decide whether criminal charges should be pursued.

The subpoenas come in the wake of the business group's Christmas Eve filing in U.S. District Court in Austin. Hammond and the association are asking the federal court to declare that they have a First Amendment right to create and disburse issue ads. If the federal court agrees, it would short-circuit Earle's investigation and kill two lawsuits that several losing candidates filed against the group in state court.

After the November election, the association touted its "aggressive election effort" to win seats for pro-business candidates:

"The Texas Association of Business blew the doors off the November 5 general election using an unprecedented show of muscle . . .," it said in a post-election press release.

The association anticipated flexing that muscle with a Legislature dominated by Republican majorities. But in the federal lawsuit, Hammond complained that the threat of a criminal investigation and the lawsuits filed by defeated candidates had a "chilling effect" on the group's political speech.

"Only by receiving judicial clarification of its constitutional rights can we avoid the intimidating effect of the possible civil liability and/or criminal prosecution," Hammond wrote in an affidavit.

Hammond said the group is relying on federal court decisions that define issue ads as those that avoid advocating the election or defeat of a candidate by not using so-called magic words, such as "vote for" or "vote against."

The advertisements either touted a candidate's business credentials or contrasted the association-backed candidates with their opponents.

Corporations have used so-called soft money to finance issue ads nationally and in other states. But last year's election included at least two unprecedented efforts to affect legislative races in Texas.

Besides the business group's effort, the Virginia-based Law Enforcement Alliance of America spent an estimated $1.5 million in last-minute TV commercials attacking attorney general candidate Kirk Watson, Austin's former mayor, and praising GOP candidate Greg Abbott. A Texas law enforcement group filed complaints with Texas prosecutors, but so far no subpoenas have been issued for that group's records.

Abbott said his campaign did not coordinate the commercial with the Virginia group and dismissed Watson's objections as "just another Watson lie." Abbott won the election.

lcopelin@statesman.com; 445-3617

Here is harder data.

And even harder.

And finally, the bill that results from alll that screwin'.

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