* WWKD ?

EDITORIAL

When Texas politics begin to smell, open window

EDITORIAL BOARD
Sunday, September 18, 2005

More than 750 taxpayers received $461 million in tax credits and refunds from state Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn's office within a year of her receiving a campaign contribution from them or a related entity, according to a recent report from the state auditor. Their campaign contributions, made within that year, totaled $2 million.
Strayhorn says she did no tax favors for contributors, and the auditor's report said it was "not implying any wrongdoing" by any taxpayers, their representatives or the comptroller.
Nevertheless, the findings smell bad.
One company that represents taxpayers in disputes with the comptroller's office, Dallas-based Ryan & Co., contributed nearly $790,000 to Strayhorn from 1999, when she took office, through last year. So far this year, its officials have given her $351,000, according to reports to the Texas Ethics Commission.
Strayhorn is challenging Gov. Rick Perry in the Republican primary. Perry kept a straight face as he intoned that the auditor's report was "very troubling" because the public trust was at stake.
He's right.
But the comptroller is not the only Texas officeholder who takes money from those who benefit directly from his or her decisions. Take the governor, for example.
Over the past two years, telephone company interests — primarily SBC Communications Inc. — gave Perry $156,000 in campaign contributions.
On Sept. 7, Perry signed a major telecommunications bill favored by those interests and hotly opposed by the cable industry, which had given him only $25,000 over the same period.
Did Perry sign the bill because the telephone companies paid him more in campaign contributions? Not according to the governor's office, which said he signed it to attract investment in technology and create greater competition for video, cable and telephone services.
The state auditor says the Legislature should consider barring a person or business representing taxpayers before the comptroller from giving campaign contributions to the comptroller or any candidate for the office. Not a bad idea, but why stop there?
Why not ban lawyers and law firms with cases before the state's courts from contributing to judges or judicial candidates on those courts? Why not bar state representatives and senators from representing, for pay, clients with business before state agencies — or stop them from voting on any bill with a direct impact on any of their campaign contributors? The problem exists among virtually all elected state offices.
This is not to excuse the flow of interested money to Strayhorn, or to ignore Perry's archness. Rather, the problem is that political candidates, including incumbents, must raise heaps of money to get their messages out in a state as large as Texas. Texans aren't likely to support public financing of political campaigns, and there's no demand to limit the size of campaign contributions.
To safeguard the public interest, Texas has relied primarily on full disclosure of who is contributing and how much. On that score, the auditor had other recommendations, including requirements that taxpayer representatives register as such with the Texas Ethics Commission, and that the comptroller set up its own registry of taxpayer representatives.
A comptroller's registry would make it easier for a future auditor — or prosecutors — to link tax representatives to a comptroller's campaign contributors to determine whether illegal favors were exchanged.
Texas voters ought to at least know where the smell is coming from.

source: http://www.statesman.com/opinion/content/editorial/stories/09/18strayhorn_edit.html
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* WWKD - What would *Kinky Do ? As in Kinky Friedman, Independent Texan, running for Texas Governor !