Watchdog group says Craddick illegally trying to buy support
AUSTIN — A political watchdog group has filed a criminal complaint alleging that Tom Craddick is illegally trying to buy support for his re-election as speaker of the Texas House, a newspaper reports.
The Austin American-Statesman reported the complaint by the Texans for Public Justice filed the complaint Monday with Travis County prosecutors.
The group accuses Craddick, a Republican, of donating $50,000 to each of three Democrats who support Craddick and are facing re-election challenges within their party. A fourth Democrat turned down the money, the group alleges.
House members must elect a speaker when they convene next year. Craddick turned back two challenges to his leadership from his own party last year. Fifteen Democrats were crucial in offsetting his loss of support among Republicans.
The Complaint
McDonald’s complaint suggests the transaction violated the so-called speaker’s statute that prohibits anyone, including a speaker’s candidate, from spending campaign donations to aid or defeat a speaker candidate.
The law also lists acceptable expenditures for a speaker’s candidate to make with his campaign money. Donations to other candidates, according to the complaint, is not one of them.
In essence, McDonald is suggesting Craddick made the donations through the committee to aid his own re-election as speaker and not just to support the three Democrats.
In an interview, McDonald said an investigation is necessary: “The DA has the tools to figure out if this transaction was accomplished with a wink and a nod or a couple of emails.”
The complaint further alleges that by cycling the money through a political committee Craddick was attempting to hide the true source of the money — a violation of state election law — from the incumbents’ constituents.
In an interview, McDonald acknowledged that the circumstances of the donations, documented in public reports, made the money easy to trace.
“If they are trying to hide a transaction,” McDonald said, “they haven’t done it very well.”
This is not the first time a speaker has donated money from his account to a political committee that helped his supporters.
Over the last four years, Craddick has given $235,000 to Stars Over Texas, a political committee that helps re-elect Republican House members. In 2006, the speaker also gave $90,000 to Texas Opportunity, a committee that also supported GOP House incumbents.
Craddick’s predecessor, Pete Laney, D-Hale Center, donated $40,000 to Texas Partnership, a political committee that provided consultants, pollsters and direct mail for House Democratic incumbents.
