09.18.08
Ethics Complaint Filed Against 3rd Court of Appeals Chief Justice W. Kenneth Law
Texans for Public Justice has filed an ethics complaint against the Chief Just of the Third Court of Appeals, Watchdog Group Alleges That Appellate Chief Justice Ken Law Repeatedly Broke Campaign Laws.
Texans for Public Justice filed a pair of complaints with Travis County Attorney David Escamilla and the Texas Ethics Commission today alleging that Third Court of Appeals Chief Justice W. Kenneth Law repeatedly violated the Texas Election Code in the course of his current reelection campaign. The alleged violations include illegally collecting more than $66,000 in political contributions without a duly appointed campaign treasurer and taking $10,000 from GOP Swift-Boat activist Harold Simmons—twice what the state Judicial Campaign Fairness Act permits.
Two of the alleged violations are misdemeanors that carry criminal penalties and fall under the jurisdiction of Travis County Attorney David Escamilla. The other four alleged violations are subject to civil penalties levied by the Texas Ethics Commission. If the agency upholds these violations, Judge Law could face civil fines totaling more than $235,000.
Central Texas voters elected Law Chief Justice in November 2002. Last month he and two other Republican members of his court issued a divisive ruling in the criminal case against Tom DeLay’s Texans for a Republican Majority PAC (TRMPAC). The ruling uses technical distinctions between “funds” and “checks” to suggest that TRMPAC did not illegally launder corporate political funds. To protect DeLay and two cronies, the justices wrote that TRMPAC’s checks were not money-laundering “funds.”
“As Judge Law labored over the TRMPAC ruling, he appears to have raised tens of thousands of campaign dollars in violation of Texas election laws,” said Texans for Public Justice Director Craig McDonald. “The chief justice even may have cashed these ill-gotten campaign ‘checks’ into ‘funds.’ So many violations represent incompetence or indifference on his part.”
Ah yes DeLay, TRMPAC, “Swift Boat” Simmons and the gang. The Texas Progress Council has much more on the recent rulings in the DeLay/TRMPAC case. First this, The Corruption of Texas Courts.
Let’s summarize. Tom DeLay, Tom Craddick and their cronies put together an illegal scheme to launder corporate money into Texas House races in 2002. Corporate money is illegal in Texas campaigns. The money was used to gain the GOP House majority that made Tom Craddick speaker. DeLay, Colyandro and Ellis were indicted in connection with the launder of $190,000. A check in that amount, signed by Colyandro, was sent from DeLay’s Texans for a Republic Majority (TRMPAC) to the Republican National State Elections Committee. The amount allegedly included $100,000 in corporate donations. Eventually, $190,000 was sent by the Elections Committee to seven GOP House candidates at the direction of Ellis. That’s laundering.
But now the 3rd Court of Appeals is saying, no, not criminal laundering, because it was legal to launder by check under the old law — and they are relying on the actions of a recipient of the laundered money, Larry Taylor, to make their case.
Not to mention the fact that the three justices that ruled on this case have some interesting campaign contributions.
The three judge panel of the court who signed the opinion — W. Kenneth Law, Bob Pemberton and Alan Waldrop — are all owned by the same corrupt cabal that gave us the now disgraced Tom DeLay, the extremist autocrat Tom Craddick and others.
Before joining the court, Waldrop was a lobbyist for Texans for Lawsuit Reform, itself deeply implicated in the very scandal which led to the 3rd Court’s ruling. The TLR is to this corrupt, one-party, out-of-balance rule what junk yards or car washes are to the mob: influence peddlers and special interest protectors posing as a legitimate enterprise.
Waldrop received $5,000 from the TLR, $5,000 from anti-public school obsessive James Leininger, $6,000 from Walter Negley, and significant support from various other involved PACs.
Pemberton received $6,500 from Bob Perry, the Houston-are construction magnate who funded the notorious, ugly Swift Boat campaigns. He DeLay’s most significant benefactor, Craddick’s too. Harold Simmons, also notorious for his megalomania and his dark and ugly attack campaigns on political opponents, gave Pemberton $5,000. The TLR gave him $7,500.
Wanting in on the take, Ken Law received $5,000 from the TLR.
Read Justice Diane Henson’s dissent in the DeLay case here, Justice criticize colleagues’ handling of DeLay opinion. This is very important because the Third Court of Appeals includes Williamson County. And there’s an excellent Democratic candidate running for Chief Justice Third Court of Appeals, Woodie Jones.
Links to the TPJ complaints:
Eye on Williamson » More on “politics as usual” of the GOP elected officials in Williamson County said,
September 26, 2008 at 12:59 pm
[...] of the Third Court of Appeals, who is under an ethics cloud. (See this EOW post from last week, Ethics Complaint Filed Against 3rd Court of Appeals Chief Justice W. Kenneth Law). But the relationship – as previously reported in the Austin Chronicle by Patricia J. Ruland, [...]
Eye on Williamson » Broken Law and the criminality of what is legal said,
October 2, 2008 at 10:53 am
[...] Patricia J. Ruland at the Austin Chronicle expands on the connections between 3rd Court of Appeals Chief Justice W. Kenneth Law’s ethics problems and how they connect to elected officials in Williamson County in this article, TPJ Campaign [...]