IV. Ethics & Disclosures
Issues
The Judicial Campaign Fairness Act (JCFA), which took effect in June of 1995, subjected Texas judicial campaigns to contribution limits14 Although these limits are absurdly high, one current candidate managed to violate the spirit of this law.
Texas law says that a Texas Supreme Court candidate can take up to $5,000 from an individual, $30,000 from a law firm and $300,000 from a political action committee in each election. Under this law, a candidate who has a primary, runoff and general election all within one election cycle may hit these limits three separate times. In already raising $50,000 from the Houston plaintiff firm Fleming & Associates, Judge Margaret Mirabal, appears to have violated the spirit of the legal limits on law-firm donations since she faced no opponent in the Democratic primary. Texas Ethics Commission lawyers say Mirabal escapes the letter of the law, however, because the limits apply to each election in which a candidate is “involved.” The Texas Ethics Commission has interpreted involvement to mean any election in which a candidate appears on the ballot—even if that candidate is unopposed, as Mirabal was in her primary. This interpretation lets candidates in uncontested primaries have it both ways. On the one hand, the primary is recognized as another “election” in which they can raise money up the limits. On the other hand, they are not required to file the disclosure reports that candidates in contested races must file before the primary. It is hard to believe that this was the legislature’s intent.
Although candidates’ disclosure of donor information has improved dramatically from pre-JCFA days, some candidates still fall woefully short. Luddite candidates Sam Lee and Steve Smith, for example, failed to file any of their disclosure reports electronically, thereby imposing needless burdens on anyone seeking to access or analyze these data. James Parsons and William Moody filed their July reports electronically but just filed paper reports in January. Parsons also won the booby prize for failing to disclose the employers and occupations of his donors. When Parsons reported raising $110,197 in his July report, for example, he just disclosed a single donor’s employer. Candidates should not be allowed to keep money that they do not fully disclose as required by law. Under this standard, Parsons arguably would have been more diligent if he only could keep the $100 that he fully disclosed.
Finally, several candidates for Texas’ highest
civil court appear not to be properly disclosing their campaign “cash-on-hand,”
as required by law. Candidates William Moody, Jesse Wainwright and Linda
Yanez dubiously reported that they had no cash-on-hand in their July reports.
Based on what they reported raising and spending in earlier reports, it
appears that Wainwright had an estimated $314,618 on hand, Yanez had $34,441
and Moody had $17,504. Richard Baker's campaign reported raising more contributions than it spent. This suggests that it had some money left over, even though the campaign
reported that it had no cash on hand. Baker also reported spending $13,721 of his own money. In the absence of serious penalties, many candidates apparently treat campaign
disclosure laws as if they were voluntary.