What the Charges are About
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/03/04/60minutes/main678234.shtml
What's been going on down in Texas revolves around a state law that is 102 years old. It bans the use of corporate money in state campaigns. Craig McDonald, who runs a liberal political watchdog group in Austin, discovered $600,000 in corporate contributions to DeLay’s PAC in public records filed with the IRS.
"We had to date never seen such cheating, such an influx of corporate money into our state elections process," says McDonald.
But lawyers for TRMPAC say the law is murky because it allows corporate money to be spent in campaigns for “administrative” functions.
"Well, that's the spin they’re using," says McDonald.
"What do you mean by that," asks Stahl. "They say the money went to administrative functions. They say the law says they can use the money for that reason. What’s wrong? Where’s the hole in that?"
"No, the law is very clear in Texas on how you can use corporate funds: paying your rent, paying your telephone bills, paying your accountant," says McDonald. "Very, very specific limited administrative expenses."
Does he know how they spent that money? "It's in black and white in the IRS reports," says McDonald. "They spent it for political activities, prohibited activities under the Texas law."
He says TRMPAC was anything but secretive about what it was up to. He read from a TRMPAC brochure that went out to corporate executives.
"Rather than just paying for overhead, which is all that is allowable under Texas law, overhead, 'Your support will fund a series of productive and innovative activities,'" says McDonald. "And they go on to list four activities, all of which are really defined as political activities under Texas laws."
And these activities, he says, are "spelled out."
"Candidate evaluation recruitment. Message development and communication," says McDonald. "These activities cannot be paid for with corporate dollars under Texas law."
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"Active candidate evaluation and recruitment. Message development. Market research and issue development," says Stahl. "I mean, how is that administrative?"
"Active candidate evaluation and recruitment, that’s a party of administrative procedure," says Carter. "That’s a party function."
"I thought administration was the running of the office. The Xerox machine. Paying bills," says Stahl.
"This is what the court has to rule on," says Carter. "If they find all these things are administrative, there’ll be no convictions in this case."
Would this be considered a technicality – a way to revolve around a definition of administrative?
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Meanwhile in Texas, three of the indicted companies have agreed to cooperate with the investigation, and lawyers following the case say the prosecutor may try and “flip” the two DeLay associates indicted in the case -- offering Jim Ellis and TRMPAC Executive Director John Colliandro a deal in exchange for evidence against DeLay.
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"And now, some people might say, 'You know, all these Republicans did was try to get elected. And, you know, politics ain't bean bag, as we've heard many times. They just played hard,'" says Stahl.
"You bet. I think that's great," says Earle. "The problem here is we believe that the law was broken in the process. That's the point. The law was broken."
Most of his political cases, though, were against conservative Democrats. There weren't any Republicans around in those days.
