…from this, via e-mail:
The combination of laxness and ambiguity in Texas campaign finance laws seems to provide fertile soil for periodic scandal. The most recent example is the investigation of contributions made through the Texas Association of Business (TAB) and Texans for a Republican Majority (TRMPAC) during the 2002 election cycle – investigations that generated a spate of criminal indictments in 2004. Details of these investigations were lost on most of the public: a context leading to easy use in the 2004 campaigns by both Democrats and Republicans, who accused the opposing party of either engaging in unlawful activity or playing politics with the law.
The arcane details of the TAB case have also required very drawn out investigations, the results of which were still not clear as of December 2004, more than two years after the elections under investigation. Nonetheless, two things about the investigation were unambiguous: the laws regulating campaign contributions and spending were difficult to interpret and enforce, and the Texas Ethics Commission was not involved in the investigations that yielded grand jury hearings and charges against contributors and political operatives. The investigations had all been undertaken by the Travis County district attorney’s office – a fact that underlines the passivity built into the TEC.