Gary Turner
Citizen D
Dr. Bill
                             

06/16/03  Some politicians are afraid for us to know.

Will Governor Perry sign the Ethics Bill or cave in to crooked politicians who have something to hide?  

It's pretty serious stuff when paranoid elected officials claim they will step down from office if the Ethics Bill becomes law.  Can we get that in writing?

Ethics bill faulted; Local officials' reactions mixed on possibility of financial statements 06/15/2003 By STEPHANIE SANDOVAL / The Dallas Morning News

. . .   In Plano, some City Council members have discussed stepping down if Gov. Rick Perry doesn't veto the ethics bill. . . .  "too invasive, too much private information . . ."said Plano Mayor Pat Evans.    The Texas Municipal League and the Texas Association of School Boards have sent letters to Mr. Perry, urging him on behalf of their members to veto the bill. Some cities and school districts have sent letters on their own. . . .  State Rep. Steve Wolens, D-Dallas, who wrote the ethics bill, said it would help ensure openness and honesty in local government.    "The purpose of it is to disclose to the public whether or not there are any conflicts of interest in the financial dealings of a public official and how they vote," said Mr. Wolens.  . . .   "School board members serve without pay, unlike a lot of folks this ethics bill applies to," said Terry Cannon, communications manager of the state school boards association. ". . . we think will reduce the number of candidates who will choose to run for a position on the school board. And we worry we might even lose some currently serving school board members who don't want to fill out a 17-page document." . . .  Fort Worth city and school district leaders said they have no plans to oppose the bill.  . . .  Arlington Mayor Robert Cluck said the law would . . .  stifle the entrance of young, active people into city government. . . .  Grand Prairie Mayor Charles England called the ethics legislation a "nuisance bill" Staff writers Karin Anderson, Cherie Bell, Herb Booth, Laurie Fox, Kristen Holland, Kristine Hughes, Lee Powell, Scott Stafford and Toya Stewart contributed to this report.

DallasArena.com supports the new Ethics Bill.   If you have secrets, don't run for office.  Spare yourself all that trouble.  If you don't want to expose your conflicts of interests, don't run for office.  There are many honest people who are ready to step into politics if we could ever get the crooks out of office.  Dallas.org is also encouraging support for the new Ethics Bill:  Critics Try to Derail Proposed Ethics Bill.

BarkingDogs.org says City Hall is now for sale.

DallasISD.com has a shocking edition about DISD Trustee Ron Price's arrest and conviction for domestic violence:

What does this say about our local elected officials?  What does it say about local voters?

In all fairness, some local elected officials like Joe Thug May got their seats via vote harvesting and other shady schemes.  The voters may or may not have elected the likes of Joe Thug May.

Then there's DISD Trustee Lois Parrott who supported a wife beater for School Board  Secretary/Treasurer and a vote harvester for 2nd VP, just so she could be 1st VP of the School Board.  No one should ever take Parrott seriously again.  How could any educator want a wife beater in a position of authority to vote on matters impacting children's lives?  What a great example for young men in the DISD school system to see a convicted wife beater as an elected official!   Having a convicted wife beater on the school board is even more discouraging for girls and young women.  Those people who voted for and supported Ron Price over Rossi Walters sent a message that it's OK to beat a woman.  

One of my neighbors circulated the DallasISD.com report, and we had the following exchange:

Mike really nailed it.  How can ignorant people in our city elect clowns with backgrounds like some on the council and school board?   

After Gary Griffith continued to send out mailers with false information about her record on the DISD Board, Roxan Staff tried to tell voters about Griffith's role in the Epic Health Care Pension Fund scandal.  That was one of the mailers that mysteriously landed in a corner of the Bulk Mail Center.  Imagine that!  District 9 voters did not have all the facts.

DallasArena.com reported (Roxan Staff, Citizen Extraordinare) on gay bashing by a Griffith volunteer on election day, and The Dallas Voice did a story on that and an anonymous mailer that went only to GOP Primary voters with a stamp:

Phony mailer taints District 9 council runoff; Flyer apparently mailed to Republicans, arrives the day before Griffith overwhelmed Staff; she accuses Griffith campaign of dirty tricks   By David Webb, Staff Reporter

A phony mailer touting unsuccessful District 9 City Council candidate Roxan Staff?s gay support landed in Republican mailboxes the day before her election runoff with winner Gary Griffith. . . .  Stamps rather than a postal permit were used to mail the literature, in an apparent effort to prevent the sender from being traced. . . . no return address  . . .   mailers also did not carry a statement, required by law, about who paid for them. . . .  Griffith, who denied any knowledge of the mailing,  . . .   ?This is the first I?ve heard of it,? Griffith said. ?I would not allow that to happen in any part of my campaign.? Dallas Gay and Lesbian Alliance president Roger Wedell said his group?s political action committee . . . had nothing to do with the mailing of the literature with the Dallas Voice logo . . .  ?It is a clear example of gay baiting,? Wedell said. ?We don?t have any idea at this point who mailed it.? Staff supporter Sharon Boyd, a two-time unsuccessful City Council candidate, said she also suspects Griffith?s campaign workers of orchestrating the mailing. Boyd said that she overheard a Griffith campaign worker on election day at a polling site telling a voter that Staff supported repealing the sodomy law and that she was endorsed by Flowers. ?It was clear that she thought it was something the voter needed to know, and that she considered it a bad thing,? said Boyd, who noted that she confronted the campaign worker. Boyd said that the campaign worker told her that she had misinterpreted the conversation. Griffith said that his campaign volunteers were told to greet voters and to provide information, but that telephoning was not authorized. ?I didn?t see anyone on the phones, and I didn?t give anyone instructions to make calls,? said Griffith, who spent about an hour at that polling site. ?We gave clear instructions about what to do, and that was to greet the voters and to ask if they wanted any information.? Griffith said that Boyd was the only campaign worker he noticed on the phone while he was there. . . .

That's right.  By the time Gary got there, his volunteer had stopped calling her list.  There was no "misinterpretation".   I was not the only one who heard what the woman said.  When she finished talking to the voter, I asked her if she was "gay bashing" and she said "it's on their web site".  Whatever that meant!

There were other campaigns where questionable mailers were sent out to arrive on the day before Election Day.  So, some voters were deceived.  We will never know whether that changed their vote or affected their choice or even caused them to stay home and not vote at all.  The deceptive mailers were intended to affect the voter's decision, and in at least two elections were very effective.

It's not just that we have people in office who fall short of honorable.  We have dishonest campaigns and people knowingly and willfully violating the city's election laws.  If no one is going to enforce the laws we have regulating elections, then get rid of the laws and let all candidates play without rules.

If the Ethics Bill goes through, hopefully with the Governor's signature, it will be a good thing.  If the new disclosure rules discourage crooks and self-servers from seeking office, it will be a better thing.  If the new disclosure rules cause some current elected officials to resign from office, it will be the best thing possible.

It is interesting (but not unexpected) that the Texas Municipal League and the Texas Association of School Boards oppose the Ethics Bill.   Many in their memberships have much to lose if voters and taxpayers know how they benefit from their office.  Some of the state's biggest corruption scandals have involved contracts going to friends and business partners of school board members and/or school administrators.  Remember Matthew Harden, the boyfriend of Superintendent Yolanda Gonzalez?  Just last year, he was trying to get a construction contract at DFW.  Didn't he get a six figure settlement from the DISD to go away?

Racially drawn single member districts, ward politics and crooked politicians have had a disastrous impact on voter participation in Dallas.  Forcing candidates and officeholders to disclose where they get their money (both privately and politically) will be a step in the right direction toward increased voter involvement.  Many of the crooks will stay home -- except in those districts where the voters seem to revere their home-grown felons.   Honest people will have a better chance of being elected if voters know how to separate them from the crooks -- except in those districts where voters prefer crooked politicians.

We need to know more about the people who make big campaign contributions.  If all the zoning lawyers are backing one candidate over another, that's important to know.  If sex club owners are financing one candidate over another, voters have a right to know.  Even The Dallas Managed News understands this one:

Opinion: Editorials Don't Veto: Ethics, ID theft, drug bills should become law 06/11/2003

Texas finally has an ethics bill that curbs conflicts of interest and requires greater disclosure of campaign contributions. But the work of legislative leaders, including GOP House Speaker Tom Craddick and Rep. Steve Wolens, D-Dallas, to salvage the bill in the session's waning hours will go down the drain if Gov. Rick Perry follows the advice of some municipal officials to veto it. . . . The governor should sign it ? despite pressure from the Texas Municipal League and the threats by some elected city officials to resign if the bill becomes law.     Their objections relate to a provision that council members, city managers and city attorneys in cities with populations of more than 100,000 would have to divulge the sources of their income, the value of their stocks and their real-estate holdings. And well they should, so voters can judge if they have conflicts. . . .  It stops lawmakers from lobbying for clients before state agencies, requires candidates to identify the occupation and employer of $500-plus contributors, makes candidates and public officials report cash on hand, strengthens electronic filing requirements and gives the Texas Ethics Commission greater power.     Gov. Perry vetoed 82 bills after his first session . . .   Starting with the ethics bill, let's hope he isn't so quick to wield the veto pen.  . . .

  We deserve honest campaigns.  
  We deserve honest politicians.  
  We deserve honest government.

We don't have to agree with every vote an officeholder makes, but we have a right to expect that vote to be based on merit -- not self-gain.  We should never again have something like what Shakedown Chaney did with the re-naming of Starplex.

Governor Perry, please sign the Ethics Bill.