A bill filed this week by a veteran state GOP lawmaker
would give the Texas Ethics Commission -- whose members were appointed by the three top elected officials in the state, all Republicans -- the power to quash the prosecution of a politician.
State Rep. Mary Denny, who filed the bill, said in an interview Thursday that she was attempting to add oversight, not remove it. She said it never occurred to her that the legislation could be used to protect Republican leaders who might become targets of the fundraising investigation.
Denny, a ranch owner from Aubrey, near Dallas, is serving her seventh two-year term in the state House and is the chairwoman of the House Elections Committee.
She said the bill was intended to provide an additional layer of oversight when allegations of campaign law violations were levied at the local level -- in city council races, for instance. Prosecutors often don't have time to vigorously pursue these types of complaints, she said, allowing them to fall by the wayside.
But the bill doesn't stop there.
It also says that a district attorney, including the one in Austin who is overseeing the fundraising investigation, would be prohibited from continuing such an inquiry if the Ethics Commission did not agree that charges were warranted. Denny said she believed district attorneys would welcome input from people who specialized in election law.
"Why would they want to pursue something when there is no wrongdoing?" she asked.
Sarah Woelk, general counsel of the Ethics Commission, said she was prohibited by law from taking a position on any proposed legislation. But she said the commission did not request the legislation.
"I had not heard anything about it," she said.
Republicans, long the minority in Texas, swept to power in 2002 and now control every statewide office, both houses of the Legislature and the governor's mansion. The following year, at DeLay's request, the Legislature drew new maps of Texas congressional districts. The maps gave the GOP a six-seat swing in the state congressional delegation last year, helping cement the party's control of Congress.
At least Delay's persistant.
What a corrupt scumbag.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-ethics11feb11,1,7321903.story?coll=la-headlines
-nation