The aptly-named Take Initiative America, took the initiative and broke the law in spending secretive corporate cash to help the Green Party gain access to the statewide ballot in November, according to Texas Democratic Party lawyers. The Austin American-Statesman is reporting that the shadow Republican group spent more than a half-million dollars to gather signatures for the Green Party’s ballot petition.
Jason Embry is reporting that Take Initiative America misled at least one Green Party officer before the petition drive began.
In a June 10 e-mail to other Green Party officials, state party treasurer David Wager said, “I was promised by a representative of Take Initiative America that the organization was not a corporation and that he would comply with all disclosure requests. Today I was informed that the organization is in fact a corporation and they will not disclose their donors. They claim that their collection of signatures and in-kind contribution was not political. I don’t agree. In my opinion, we have no choice but to refuse the signatures.”
On his blog, Embry explains that “Democrats contend that Republicans are behind the effort because a Green candidate likely would pull votes away from Democrat Bill White, who is challenging Gov. Rick Perry. Take Initiative America has not disclosed its donors. ”
The numerous problems with the Texas Enterprise Fund (TEF) have been apparent, for anyone willing to see them, for quite a while, (see State Development Fund Rewards Hype: Incentives Great, Penalties Few For Companies That Overstate Their Benefits). The TEF allows the Governor, with tacit approval of Lt. Gov. and Speaker, to hand out corporate welfare to supposedly “attract new business to the state..”. From what Gov. Perry and his GOP cohorts always say, Texas already being such a great place for businesses, that they wouldn’t have to bribe them to come here.
* The Governor’s Office has awarded $363 million to 45 TEF recipients to create or maintain 47,735 jobs. These projects claimed 31,319 jobs in compliance reports covering 2008.
* Just 13 of the 45 job-related projects reviewed were performing well.
*As of October 2009 the Governor has penalized 11 TEF grantees for defaulting on their job creation commitments. These penalties, totaling $647,100, amount to just 1 percent of the $64 million in TEF funding that they received.
* The Governor has imposed the “death penalty” on just two TEF projects despite the fact that many other TEF recipients have qualified for termination.
* In February 2009, Perry declared that the TEF program had created 54,000 jobs since 2003. More than one-third of these jobs are pledges that have yet to materialize.
There’s much more. The Texas Observer had this story earlier in the year, Slush Fun, which shows that several companies that received money from the TEF, gave money to Perry in the form of campaign contributions.
Many companies that have received money from the fund have, in turn, aided the governor. An Observer investigation has found that 20 of the 55 Enterprise Fund companies have either given money directly to Perry’s campaign (through their political action committees or executives) or donated to the Republican Governors Association, a Washington, D.C.-based group that Perry presided over in 2008.
The 20 companies have received a combined $174.2 million from the Enterprise Fund. During the same time period, those 20 corporations have donated $2.2 million to Perry and the governors association. Several companies made donations around the time they received grants from the Enterprise Fund. It’s even possible that taxpayer money from the fund came full circle into Perry’s own campaign.
Texans for Public Justice today urged Texas’ top three officials who oversee the Texas Enterprise Fund (TEF) to investigate if Sematech, Inc. violated the 2004 contract it signed to obtain $40 million in state funds. Governor Rick Perry’s highly-touted Enterprise Fund awarded the high-tech consortium $40 million in 2004 to establish the Advanced Material Research Center (AMRC) in Austin. Sematech’s subsequent dealings with the State of New York strain the terms of its TEF contract—arguably to the breaking point. In a letter today to Governor Perry, Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst and Speaker Joe Straus, TPJ called for a probe into Sematech’s contract compliance, urging the officials to either “enforce compliance or recover the scarce funds that failed to deliver the promised benefits.”
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“The Enterprise Fund is crying out for greater accountability, transparency and oversight. The Sematech fiasco highlights Governor Perry’s conflicts in both awarding and enforcing Enterprise Fund grants,” said Craig McDonald, director of Texans for Public Justice. “The governor is quick to tout the promised jobs but slow to make corporate welfare recipients live up to the terms of their handouts.”
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“If Sematech is two-timing Texas, Perry needs to get our $40 million back,” added McDonald.
This is one area where Texans can see the unchecked powers that Perry has accumulated from being in office for too many years. Perry believes, because he’s been in power for so long, that like a King he can do as he pleases. He also thinks that because he’s been returned to office, over and over again, that whatever he does it right and Texans will go along. If Perry is returned to office again we can only imagine how much more of our money, for four more years, will go to corporations in this manner.
Newsweek’s cover boy, Rick Perry, just got some more national publicity. And it’s probably the kind of attention the Texas governor would rather avoid.
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, the nonpartisan watchdog group that has hounded politicians from both parties, this morning chose Perry as one of “the nation’s most incompetent and unethical governors.”
Perry’s office dismissed the report and a spokesman said that the GOP governor has “one of the strictest ethics policies in the nation.”
The “winning” list of 11 governors — including nine Republicans and two Democrats — is composed of elected officials “who have pushed their states’ best interests aside in favor of their supporters, families, political parties and bank accounts,” CREW said in its announcement.
CREW singled out six Perry controversies. Among them, the group said that the governor “allegedly disregarded campaign finance laws and aided a business that was especially generous to his campaign” and “accepted travel and campaign donations from a business that received benefits from his official actions.
Texans for Public Justice (TPJ) has a new report out, Gov. Perry Pockets $6 Million from Regent Appointees. In it they detail how much money Perry has collected over the years from people who donated to his campaigns for governor, that he has appointed to Texas public university Boards of Regents over the years.
Rick Perry has collected almost $6.1 million from the 155 people whom he has appointed to be non-student regents since becoming governor in late 2000. Over the past decade, 97 regent appointees gave to Perry’s campaign—or 63 percent of Perry’s regent appointees. Regents contributed both before and after their appointments.
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The average Perry-appointed regent overseeing a public university contributed $39,251 to the campaign of the Regent-In-Chief. Regents at the elite University of Texas and A&M University contributed average amounts approaching $100,000. Just the regents whom Perry appointed to UT, A&M and Texas Tech dumped $4.1 million into Perry’s campaign coffers. At the other end of the spectrum, Texas Woman’s University regents contributed an average of $234 to Perry’s campaign.
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Michele “Mica” Mosbacher was the top overall regent donor. This appointee to the University of Houston Board of Regents has contributed $440,400 to Governor Perry’s campaigns. Paul Foster, vice chair of the University of Texas System Board of Regents, contributed $370,157. There are 21 regent appointees who contributed more than $100,000 apiece to Perry’s campaign.
There is nothing illegal about this, and Perry is by no means the first governor to do this. But what this goes to show is how “burrowed in” Perry’s right-wing cronies have gotten into all corners of our state government because of Perry’s long tenure as governor. The report also mentions complaints that surface during the GOP primary that appointees who supported Kay Bailey Hutchison may have been pressured to resign by Perry campaign intermediaries.
“Texas leaders will continue to do everything in our power to fight this federal excess and find ways to protect our families, taxpayers and medical providers from this gross federal overreach.” -Texas GOP Gov. Rick Perry commenting on the passage of health care legislation.
According to the eight day out reports, home builder and right-wing sugar daddy Bob Perry is making his presence known, contributing a total of $95,000 to his candidates in two local House GOP primary races. The largest single political donor in Texas tapped Larry Gonzales and Milton Rister for largess as they seek the Republican nominations for House districts 52 and 20.
In HD-52 it looks like a two candidate race between Larry Gonzales and John Gordon. Gonzales in the current filing raised over $83,000, $70,000 of that from Bob Perry ($40,000) and his wife Doylene ($30,000). Gordon is largely self-financing his campaign and spent just shy of $48,000 over the last filing period. The two other candidates, Alyssa Eacono (raised $7,000/spent $16,000) and Stephen Casey (raised $1,200/spent $2,300), are lagging behind in the money race.
In HD-20 there are three candidates spending and raising significant money – Milton Rister, Dr. Charles Schwertner, and Stephen Thomas.
Milton Rister raised just over $46,000 this filing period. Perry gave him $25,000 of that. Also giving to Rister were former GOP candidate for Governor Clayton Williams ($10,000), James Leininger ($2,500), and a variety of Oil interests – KOCHPAC ($1,000), Conoco Phillips ($1,500), and Chevron ($1,000).
That means Texas relies more on federal dollars and less on its own taxes than it did when Perry took office. Put another way: Texas is less independent than it was when the governor took office, not more.
Via the comments we find this article from the HChron, No candidate has unveiled budget cure-all. None have put forth a plan, but so far Perry has put forth the most detail – saying he’s do what he did in 2003. Which means deep cuts for poor and working Texans, no “tax” increases, but large increases in fees. Realistically to balance the budget it will take a combination of both cuts and more revenue.
I thought this was enlightening. This a reply to a comment to a post by Paul Burka, Why is this PAC necessary? The post is asking why is there a need for another PAC of rich pro-business Republicans that hate trial lawyers? The PAC wants the same right wing gibberish that’s been spouted for decades. Burka’s major concern seems to be that the GOP is turning too far to the right, if this PAC’s plan is to fund far right GOP primary opponents in the lege.
Not that this has anything to do with what my point was in writing this post, but … I met with Mr. Weekley and Mr. Trabulsi early in their campaign for tort reform. I said then that I favored tort reform. I stated my views in Texas Monthly. The civil justice system was out of balance and had become corrupted because of the actions of trial lawyers and the judges who favored them. Today, I believe that the civil justice system is out of balance in favor of defendants.
It is true that trial lawyers give a lot of money to Democrats. When Democrats start winning statewide offices with trial lawyer money, I promise that I will write about it. But until that money has some impact in statewide elections — or, for that matter, TTLA can get a bill passed — then all the complaints about trial lawyer money don’t amount to anything.
He’s pro-tort reform but now the pro-business/corporate judges it Texas have gone too far. And the GOP bogeyman of evil trial lawyers no longer exists in Texas.
Latest poll, Perry will likely get most votes on March 2nd, runoff like with Hutchison. A campaign Groundhog Day, we’ll get 6 more weeks of negative campaigning.
Debra Medina is fading in the Texas Republican race for Governor, and it continues to look like the contest is headed for a runoff where Rick Perry will be a strong favorite over Kay Bailey Hutchison.
Perry leads with 40% to 31% for Hutchison and 20% for Medina. Compared to PPP’s look at the race two weeks ago Perry has gained a point, Hutchison has gone up three, and Medina’s standing has declined by four.
The ‘Fearsome Four’ as they are called in this article are: Rahm Emanuel, the pugnacious chief of staff; David Axelrod and Valerie Jarrett, his senior advisers; and Robert Gibbs, his communications chief.
Read the whole thing. Its what we’ve all noticed–they absolutely dropped the populism and the effective grassroots organizing from the moment they got into the White House. I know there are people who are going to complain because people complain about the White House, Rahm, and the very notion of an overarching strategy to get things done but its pretty clear. The account of the Coakley debacle is exactly what I saw, on the ground, in MA. Now we just have the backstory.
As Ben Franklin so aptly stated at the close of the Constitutional Convention of 1787, when queried as he left Independence Hall on the final day of deliberation at the Constitutional Convention:
“A lady asked Dr. Franklin Well Doctor what have we got a republic or a monarchy. A republic replied the Doctor if you can keep it.”
If you like Congressional gridlock and insider politics, then you’ll love this decision. If you think the lobbyists for the banks, insurance firms, and oil companies need more power, you’ll love this decision. But if you value fairness, democracy and the free speech of ordinary citizens, this is a disaster. It is an immoral decision that puts the Roberts’ Court on the side of Wall Street and the big money lobbyists against the interests of Main Street America.
– Nick Nyhart of Public Citizen
Hooray!!
[UPDATE]: Here’s Lawrence Lessig’s pre-flight take on the decision:
Perry’s travels — a meeting with film executives in Los Angeles, a gathering with GOP leaders in Aspen, Colo., a visit to troops in Iraq and Afghanistan — were outlined in interviews with his aides and in documents examined by The Associated Press. But a detailed financial accounting of each trip is not easily accessible, and is in some cases off limits.
Out-of-state travel is part of Perry’s job, his aides say.
“As governor and CEO of a state that’s the 12th-largest economy in the world, it’s important that he continue to promote Texas as the best place for business, both nationally and internationally,” said Perry spokeswoman Allison Castle.
Perry visited Iraq on U.S. Defense Department trips in January and July. In August, he went to Israel on a trip organized and partially paid for by one of his campaign donors and by the investment firm Doheny Global Group. He also visited California, New York, Washington, D.C., Las Vegas, Colorado, Florida and Mississippi in 2009.
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But an open government advocate questions whether there’s enough information available about the Texas governor’s trips.
“Are we getting the full story?” said Keith Elkins, executive director of the Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas. “Any time you have the head of government, especially the governor … taxpayers and voters are interested in that.”
Texans should be able to easily find out what business the governor is doing and whom he’s doing it with, Elkins said. He cited a recent KTVT television report he said revealed new details about Perry’s Israel trip: documents showing the Perry family members and friends who went along as well as the state officials who oversee energy policy who went, plus the information that Perry’s security officers stayed at the swanky King David Hotel at a cost of $17,000 to the state.
Perry’s travel is typically paid by a patchwork of sources including his campaign, private donors and the economic development non-profit group TexasOne. Much of his 2009 travel cannot yet be viewed on state disclosure reports.
State-paid Department of Public Safety officers travel with Perry to provide security, but specifics of those costs are closed to the public, thanks to a bill passed in this year’s legislative session. Only summaries of the security costs can be obtained. A summary by DPS showed that security for the Israel trip cost $58,775 for the officers’ air fare, lodging, meals and other expenses and $15,609 for overtime pay.
The Doheny group organized and paid for Perry’s stay in Israel and for First Lady Anita Perry’s commercial flight to the country, the governor’s office said.
Perry flew to Israel aboard the private plane of Texas campaign donor Doug Pitcock, head of Williams Brothers Construction, a round-trip charter flight donated to TexasOne and valued at $180,000, Castle said. Anita Perry joined him for the trip home.