Some of the evidence in the TRMPAC civil trial/ Delay money trail

[rainbow4321]

http://www.texasobserver.org/showArticle.asp?ArticleID=1911

Unlike other organizations, your corporate contributions to TRMPAC will be put to productive use,” reads the document subpoenaed from Texans for a Republican Majority Executive Director John Colyandro. It’s one of hundreds of exhibits offered into evidence for a recent civil trial—and presumedly, presented to the Travis County grand jury for its ongoing criminal investigation as well. The political brochure—paid for with corporate money—was aimed at donors to the Tom DeLay-founded PAC, and titled “TRMPAC GOALS.”


Maloney also relates in his e-mails that he will be delivering “2 checks from Reliant” to “TD” (Tom DeLay). The circumstances under which DeLay sealed the Reliant deal earned him a rebuke from the U.S. House ethics committee in 2004. In early June 2002, DeLay held a two-day golf tournament at the Homestead resort in Hot Springs, Virginia. The cost of attending the event was a corporate contribution of $25,000 to $50,000. Five energy companies were invited by Maloney to attend: El Paso Corp., Mirant, Reliant Energy, Westar Energy, and Williams Companies. (DeLay’s dealings with Westar would earn a separate rebuke from the committee.) The golfing took place just before a House-Senate conference on an omnibus energy bill. (It’s understandable why, four months later, Maloney would complain about Reliant’s tardiness.) The Homestead event was supposed to benefit equally TRMPAC and DeLay’s Americans for a Republican Majority (ARMPAC), according to an e-mail from an ARMPAC staffer to TRMPAC’s accountant.

The Majority Leader has insisted that there was no relationship between the solicited money and any actions to influence the legislative process in Congress. Furthermore, DeLay has claimed—while lashing out at Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle—that he had no more than an advisory role in TRMPAC. Still, it’s not hard to see why the Williams Company might be confused about where to send the check and who was in charge.


If Tom DeLay set the tone for TRMPAC, Mike Toomey may have been a key player in keeping the operation moving forward on the ground. (Toomey refused to comment for this article.) During the civil trial, political consultant Chuck McDonald testified about regular meetings between himself, Colyandro, Texas Association of Business (TAB) President Bill Hammond, and then-lobbyist Toomey. Together they coordinated aid to the 23 candidates that the corporate-backed campaign had decided to support. “If they were doing something in a race, then the TAB effort could be expended elsewhere,” testified McDonald.



http://www.texasobserver.org/showArticle.asp?ArticleFileName=040312_f1.htm

"What might $1.5 million get you in the Texas Legislature?"


In 2002, Lilly worked as a fundraiser for the political action committee Texans for a Republican Majority (TRMPAC). Currently under investigation by a Travis County grand jury, TRMPAC was created in part by U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Sugar Land). The “Hammer” as he is known on Capitol Hill, didn’t just need to fund the election of any old Republican majority, he needed public officials that would vote his close friend State Rep. Tom Craddick (R-Midland) speaker of the Texas House, and then pass an unprecedented mid-decade congressional redistricting plan.

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The big lie of politics is that money doesn’t influence legislation. Traditionally, however, that influence has been somewhat mitigated. A hefty campaign contribution won’t guarantee passage of your pet bill. It simply buys you access. It means a lawmaker will let you come to his or her office to argue your piece of public policy. In theory, the folks who disagree with you likely have donated just as much money to the same politicians and will gain the same access. That’s not how it worked last session at the Texas Legislature. In 2003, it wasn’t politics as usual. Lilly and Woolley’s Houston memo and the subsequent success of TRMPAC benefactors during the 2003 legislative session hints at a staggering level of corruption in Texas augmented by overly safe legislative districts redrawn along partisan lines. “It was not just giving campaign contributions for access on a particular bill,” says McDonald of Texans for Public Justice. “It seems like they were announcing that they were selling policy or selling legislation so they could get money. It just connects a whole broader circle of corruption and power that is totally apart from what you learn in civics class.”

Selling legislation in exchange for campaign contributions is illegal. But it’s quite unlikely that any member of TRMPAC or any lawmaker will be charged with bribery, simply because prosecutors can almost never prove a quid pro quo between campaign donations and legislation. Instead, Earle’s widening grand jury investigation of the 2002 election scandal continues to center on TRMPAC’s possibly illegal use of corporate money on campaign activities. It is unclear how high Earle’s investigation will go. But these scheduling memos appear to have pulled back a curtain on the nature of political power in Texas, and the sight is ugly indeed.


“It is so broad and so ingrained in the political takeover in this state in the last couple of years,” McDonald says. “I hope has the time and ability to get into all aspects because it would be very enlightening for the state of representative government in Texas to see who really gets represented and how. Hopefully he will get to the bottom of some of it. Will he get to the bottom of all of it? I don’t know. It looks pretty massive.”

[Helga Scow Stern]

1. Thanks for posting.