Flunking the Ethics Test

Watchdog group Texans for Public Justice releases a report on just how carefully politicians comply with a 2003 law calling for candidates to report their donors' jobs and who those contributors work for, and legislators fail miserably:

Texas lawmakers collectively flunked a test of their own campaign reform law, which requires state candidates to use their “best efforts” to report the employers and occupations of individual donors of $500 or more, a Texans for Public Justice report card found.

So how do Rio Grande Valley politicians end up looking in this report card?

Pretty crappy.

Just one of the people we elect from South Texas scores as good as a C. At the head of the class is state Rep. Ryan Guillen of Roma, with a score of 72.2%. Fellow blogger state Rep. Aaron Peña Jr. earns a D with 67.5%. Most of the rest have scores that sound like what Dean Wormer would give to the members of Delta House ("Zero point zero, Mr. Blutarski.").

SENATE: First, our senators show their ability to ignore the rules, as the report card shows:

The Senate’s weakest performances came from Sens. Jon Lindsay (R-Houston), Eddie Lucio (D-Brownsville) and Judith Zaffirini (D-Laredo). These senators collectively reported a total of 306 large contributions totaling $412,150. Yet they left the occupation and employer field blank for every one of their large donors. (emphasis added)

And the one Valley senator who bothers to fill in all the blanks still earns an abysmal score:

• Eddie Lucio Jr. (Brownsville): 0.0%
• Judith Zaffirini (Laredo): 0.0%
• Chuy Hinojosa (McAllen): 22.0%

HOUSE: Next, our representatives -- two of whom didn't even bother to fill in the blanks. As the report card points out:

An extraordinary 28 members of the House (19 percent) not only flunked disclosure but left the occupation and employer fields blank for every one of their large donors. Three members accomplished this feat while raising more than $100,000 apiece in large contributions. They are Reps. Kino Flores (D-Palmview), Veronica Gonzales (D-McAllen) and Sylvester Turner (D-Houston). (emphasis added)

Anyway, the dishonor roll for Valley members of the Texas House:

• Kino Flores (Mission): 0.0%
• Veronica Gonzales (McAllen): 0.0%
• Jim Solis (Harlingen): 0.0%
• Juan Escobar (Kingsville): 39.0%
• Mando Martinez (Weslaco): 42.6%
• Aaron Peña (Edinburg): 67.5%
• Rene Oliveira (Brownsville): 69.2%
• Ryan Guillen (Roma): 72.2%

Get this: House Speaker Tom Craddick (74.9%) scores higher than any of our South Texas legislators! In fact, the Republicans beat the Democrats overall, 64% to 48%.

From a section of the report about mystery donors (contributors who are incompletely or misleadingly identified, like calling Wal-Mart heiress Alice Walton a "self-employed rancher or investor") comes this tidbit:

Sen. Judith Zaffirini (D-Laredo), a champion of tobacco-control legislation, failed to identify the employers or occupations of three trial lawyers who litigated Texas’ $15 billion lawsuit against the tobacco industry.

To be fair to Zaffirini, she explains in this San Antonio Express-News story that she didn't know about the law and is hiring someone to catch up with all the paperwork. And some politicians take issue with how TPJ scored the report, because the law doesn't say you have to list a person's previous occupation or family tree.

Still, this report shows our elected officials have a long way to go when it comes to complying with campaign donation reporting requirements.