This week, Rush Limbaugh publicly accused the Travis County Democratic Party of being the source of a controversial memo regarding President Bush's National Guard service...Link.This happened last week but it's the first I've heard of it. Hilarious! Limbaugh has obviously never been to the Travis Co. party office and seen the two staff members trying to juggle about 50 projects at once or he'd realize that we don't have the staff to even spend time coming up with that kind of scheme...
But that's an aside. The breaking news is that Kelly White Mark Strama, candidates for Texas House seats 48 and 50, held a press conference today at noon. I suspect it's a re-hash of yesterday's response to the DeLay indictments:
Austin, Sept. 21 - Reacting to the numerous felony indictments handed down today by a Travis County Grand Jury, Travis County Democratic Party Chair Chris Elliott is calling upon two local legislators to return illegal campaign contributions from the 2002 general election that are the subject of the indictments and apologize to the citizens of Travis County.Like I said yesterday, I think we should be demanding that they return ARMPAC funds as well..."Today, a Travis County Grand Jury, after a two year investigation, handed down an array of felony indictments against members of Tom DeLay's corporate fundraising machine," said Elliott. "The grand jury found that DeLay's henchmen raised and laundered corporate cash for illegal distribution to Republican candidates in Texas in the 2002 election. Todd Baxter and Jack Stick were two of the chief recipients of this illegal money and they should both return the money immediately. "
Elliott also called upon Baxter and Stick to refrain from accepting any more money from DeLay's operation until the criminal matter is resolved. "Baxter and Stick should both apologize to the citizens of Travis County for taking these illegal campaign contributions and should pledge not to accept any more money from any PAC or organization associated with Tom DeLay," said Elliott.
UPDATE: It looks like the press conference was called to draw attention to the fact Strama and White's opponents (Jack Stick and Todd Baxter) used the allegedly illegal campaign funds to pull off narrow victories in 2002:
Two Travis County Democrat candidates for the Texas House say the GOP incumbents they are trying to unseat were bought and paid for by big money donors two years ago.Posted by sarah at September 22, 2004 1:19 PM | TrackBack"Tom DeLay funneled corporate money illegally into the campaigns of our opponents. And that's why they spent their time on redistricting instead of on education and healthcare," Mark Strama, D-District 50 Candidate, said.
According to one election watchdog group, in 2002, Representative Jack Stick got nearly $47,000 from DeLay's political action committee Texans for a Republican Majority or TRM-PAC. Representative Todd Baxter took in more than $22,000. Now three top fund raisers for DeLay and TRM-PAC face criminal charges for illegally using corporate money in those donations.
"At the end, a whole lot of money came in. We now know it was tainted money. They need to give it back. They need to pledge not to take anymore," Kelly White, D-District 48 Candidate, said. (From KXAN)