11.28.06
Simply Amazing!
If the Republicans in Texas don’t remember that corruption was a big reason the Republicans were voted out of office nationally,then let’s hope they let this ruling stand.
Officials don’t need to detail cash gifts:
A Texas official who receives any sum of cash as a gift can satisfy state disclosure laws by reporting the money simply as “currency,” without specifying the amount, the Texas Ethics Commission reiterated Monday.
The 5-3 decision outraged watchdog groups and some officials who unabashedly accused the commission of failing to enforce state campaign finance laws.
“What the Ethics Commission has done is legalize bribery in the state of Texas. We call on the commission to resign en masse,” said Tom “Smitty” Smith, who heads Texas Citizen, an Austin-based group that advocates for campaign finance reform.
Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle, a Democrat, said the “currency” interpretation would render it “perfectly legal to report the gift of ‘a wheelbarrow’ without reporting that the wheelbarrow was filled with cash.”
In a letter to the commissioners dated Monday, Earle called such an analysis “absurd and out of step with both the law and current public attitudes and concerns about corruption in government.”
Shame, shame, everybody knows your name!