DeLay Allies Seek Dismissal of Charges -WP

[Rose Siding]

AUSTIN, May 11 -- Two political associates of House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) asked a judge Wednesday to throw out indictments that charge them with money laundering and unlawfully accepting corporate political contributions during the 2002 Texas legislative campaign.
...
Lawyers for Jim Ellis and John Colyandro, who ran DeLay-founded political action committees, argued that the felony indictments were based on an unconstitutionally vague Texas law that governs the use of corporate political contributions. State law bars businesses and labor unions from contributing money to influence campaigns. But such money may be used to establish a political committee or pay for a committee's administrative costs, such as office rent and utilities.

At issue in this case is whether spending corporate money on pollsters, consultants and phone banks falls under the definition of administrative costs and not "express advocacy" for a candidate.

"The statute is over-broad, and it's vague," said J.D. Pauerstein, an attorney for Ellis, the director of DeLay's Washington-based political action committee, Americans for a Republican Majority. During the 2002 election cycle, Ellis worked closely with Colyandro, then the executive director of Texans for a Republican Majority, also created by DeLay and based in Austin.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/11/AR2005051101813.html

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

1. Standard Operating Procedure.

Very much to be expected at the early stages of a trial.

[fob]

2. That's gonna be my defense if I get a speeding ticket "The statute is

over-broad, and it's vague".

But you were speeding, doing 70 in a clearly posted sixty mph zone, what's so "vague" about that?

Well there are a lot of cars that have speedometers that go up to eighty five, and some that go up to 120 and mine goes up to 140. So if the guy next to me was going sixty in a car with a speedo that goes up to eighty five then he was cruising at 70 percent of max speed while I was only using fifty percent of my speed, so I was actually going too slow.


:crazy: