Nearly Every Texas Legislator Should Be Audited (Short Title)

Hardhatters.com ^ | 12/29/14 | Hardhatters

[ziravan]

After noticing some irregularities in certain legislators’ campaign loans, we took it upon ourselves to examine every sitting State Representative’s and Senator’s campaign and PAC finance reports from their first report until now (prior to January 2015 reports) and audit their loans (more to come from contributions and expenditures at a later date). Very quickly, we noticed that, at the very least, the numbers weren’t reconciling. In some cases, the figures were off by hundreds of thousands of dollars, some by millions.

[ziravan]

I ran for office in Texas and I've filed TEC reports. The TEC is designed to protect incumbents. Period. Nobody looks at the reports except reporters just before an election, and then, they are only interested in who is donating what to whom. NOBODY looks at the nuts and bolts of these reports. Ever. Elected officials can file whatever they want, essentially.

[Graybeard58]

Nearly Every Texas Legislator Should Be Audited

[ziravan]

Part of basic opposition research is knowing what your opponent is filing: how they get their money and where they are spending it. I’ve seen some very weird stuff filed. The one time I called the TEC and asked about an opponent’s irregularities, the TEC lawyer told me that the TEC doesn’t get involved with complaints at election time because they don’t want to put their fingers on the scales of an election.

That’s fine and dandy, but election time is exactly when what is being reported counts. That’s where most of the money is raised and spent. Also, given that the election cycle begins as soon as the legislature ends it’s last special session, “election time” is 17 months out of every two year cycle...

There is no teeth in the TEC. Everything filed goes down the memory hole.

[JimRed]

I ran for office in Texas and I've filed TEC reports. The TEC is designed to protect incumbents. Period. Nobody looks at the reports except reporters just before an election, and then, they are only interested in who is donating what to whom.

Sounds like the reports we file on the "Do Not Call" listing website. There's no way to follow up on any results or to know if any action was taken. I suspect that the whole thing is a jobs program for the useless relatives of the politically connected!

[C. Edmund Wright]

This also points out that the system is complicated on purpose......too many rules guarantees problems.

[WayneS]

Nearly?

[ziravan]

Here’s an example in the article. You have to itemize any loan over 50 bucks. So, $3 million in unitemized loans means tens of thousands of loans by tens of thousands of different people... Obviously, the guy isn’t reporting those loans correctly. But, by not itemizing, the terms and bag holders of those loans aren’t known. Who is financing this guy to the tune of millions? His reports don’t say:

“Borris Miles reported unitemized loans over many different periods in various amounts totaling $3,005,000. This would mean at least 60,100 individuals loaned his campaign $50 or less. He has only made $47,383 in loan payments and shows a loan balance of $704,600.”

[thetallguy24]

It’s the patients running the asylum. The TEC answers to no one but the legislature. Screw the people, right?