A bipartisan bill to combat the use of corporate and union money in state election campaigns was announced Monday to the Texas House. State Rep. Craig Eiland, D-Galveston, and state Rep. Todd Smith, R-Bedford, introduced House Bill 1348 to reform campaign finance rules, which have left loopholes for corporate funding.
Texas is one of 26 states with a prohibition on corporate and union campaign funding.
"This is not a Republican issue, not a Democratic issue," Smith said. "It is a people issue."
The bill comes amidst a continuing investigation of possible illegal corporate contributions made to many Texas Republican candidates for the House through the political action committee Texans for a Republican Majority. Under current state election laws, corporate money can only be used to pay for administrative overhead costs. That exception has been exploited to pay for polling, employees' salaries and other costs only loosely related to overhead, according to Eiland.
Under the bill's provisions, corporate or union funds could be used to pay for office space, clerical and administrative assistant salaries, utilities and other specified expenses. They could not be used to pay for expenses such as political consulting, electioneering communication and partisan voter registration efforts.
"People vote. Corporations don't," said Eiland. "The bill would make it so you can't funnel corporate money to give it out to hungry politicians. We don't need to authorize corporate naming rights for candidates."
State Rep. Jodie Laubenberg, R-Rockwall, who received $13,500 from TRMPAC, would not comment specifically on HB 1348 and denied having any prior knowledge of corporate funds involved with the PAC.
"I'm running a campaign," she said. "TRMPAC is a legitimate PAC, and the checks were given to me by fellow representatives who were part of the organization."
About campaign financing, she said, "I have no problem with corporate money being used in elections legally. We did extensive election reform last session, so I'm curious to look at the bill and see what it says."
A provision of the bill would clarify circumstances under which attack ads can be run within 60 days of an election. It would prevent corporate or union funds from being used in such ads and would require disclosure of all individual donors funding the ads.
Smith pointed to attack ads run against state Rep. Tommy Merritt, R-Longview, which contributed to his loss in a special state senate election. The ads evaded election law requirements by telling listeners to call Merritt's office, rather than explicitly saying to vote against him.
"The presence of magic words like 'vote for' or 'vote against' is meaningless," Smith said.
State Sen. Juan Hinojosa, D-McAllen, added concerns about out-of-state money being used for attack ads.
Hinojosa and state Sen. Robert Duncan, R-Lubbock, are committed to leading the reform effort in the Senate, though no Senate bill has been introduced concerning the issue.
State Rep. Mark Strama, D-Austin, defeated Jack Stick, a major recipient of TRMPAC funds, to win his seat in the House. Strama has experience working with Rock the Vote, an organization dedicated to increasing youth voter turnout.
"One of the biggest reasons they chose not to vote was because they felt corporate money was more important to candidates than their vote," he said. "Money has become way too important in the political system."
Eiland admitted the bill does not cover all issues related to campaign finance reform, such as unregulated money for issue ads, made famous by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth ads that questioned the integrity of presidential candidate John Kerry.
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