Which, to me, doesn’t really add anything beyond a) and b) above. Earle is going after folks who abuse power. As he himself put it a while back, you have to have power to abuse it, which is why he’s going after Republicans lately. When the Democrats had power, he came after them. This doesn’t sound partisan in the least.
The implication was that he selecctively went after certain individuals as part of a political agenda. Now, it could be that Matthews had a completely biased set of guests yesterday, but I don’t think so.
I also don’t get the “well, they were conservative democrats” argument. If we were talking about Zell Miller, I could get my head around it a bit easier, but the question I’m left with is “Were 3 out of 4 people indicted and convicted by this guy members of the Democratic Party or not?” I wasn’t aware that the “partisan” accusation was more inclusive than the “ideologue” accusation. And, again, beyond a tendency to target the mighty, rightly or wrongly, I don’t see another common ideological thread in Earl’s career.
I’m really, really missing what that agenda could be. It sounds incoherent at best. “Smokescreen” is the term that comes to mind.
John Mace pretty well covered what I had to say about this. Still…
I know Ronnie Earle (slightly) and have supported him throughout his political career which goes back to the early seventies, maybe earlier. As far as I can tell, he is a good and decent man, but I think that claiming that he is fair by quoting the ratio of Democratic to Republican that he has prosecuted is misleading.
For most of Earle’s tenure as Travis County DA, Texas was a one party state. Until the mid-80’s there were virtually no Republicans in positions of power (Bill Clements being an obvious exception), so any significant corruption that happened was going to be done by Democrats.
To see if there is any political bias in his prosecutions, you would need to break out the conservative Democrats from the liberal and moderate Democrats, prior to about 1984.
Another issue about Ronnie Earle that needs to be clarified is the Kay Bailey Hutchinson case. Now I’m going to have to rely on my very fuzzy memory here, so I hope some more enterprising Doper will follow up on some real research.
As I recall, the case against Hutchinson hinged on a critical piece of evidence. The opening day of the trial the judge declared that that evidence would not be allowed. With that one decision Earle knew that he had no chance to win, and so he threw in the towel (or whatever the legal term is).
Ronnie Earle’s enemies maintained that this proved that this prosecution was politically motivated and illustrated the incompetence of Earle’s office. His friends maintained that, but for this one decision by the judge, Earle would have won the case. More importantly, they say, Earle showed some class by being the lead attorney on this case. He knew early on that the judge would likely rule the way he did, and instead of sending one of the staff lawyers to be the one to make the embarrassing move to withdraw the case, he did it himself.
Again, I’m relying on my notoriously unreliable memory for all this, so be forewarned.
Not to be unkind, but if you’d need to go back twenty years and split hairs about what kind of Democrats were being prosecuted to prove bias… well, that’s beyond weak.
Yes. And as a Democrat, I think they should. But I have to say I respect the Democrats more for not having one than I do the Republicans for crowing about this rule but eliminating it as soon as they actually have to enforce it.
Sure, DeLay’s innocent until proven guilty. That privilege extends even to the sleaziest of (alleged) criminals. Even to ex-cons. But I feel a little funny about tolerating when people say, “Oh, it’s just a little, local campaign finance law. It’s not like he broke one of the really big laws! Cut the poor guy a break, will you?” It’s downright eerie the way conservatives are writing DeLay’s pardon even before the trial has started.
The very one.
I’ve held off on answering this until I read the indictment.
The indictment alleges that Colyandro, Ellis, and Delay “…with the intent that a felony be committed, did enter into an agreement…” with each other or with the PAC named “Texans for a Republican Majority” to make a prohibited political donation by a corporation within sixty days of an election.
It oges on to allege a number of overt acts performed by Ellis and Colyandro in furtherance of the agreement: that Colyandro and the PAC accepted contributions from corporations: a total of $155,000 from six companies, including Sears and Bacardi Rum. Then, the indictment alleges, Ellis and the PAC gave a check to the Republican National State Elections Committee in the amount of $190,000, drawn on the same account to which the $155,000 was deposited. Then Ellis and the PAC provided the RNSEC a list of the candidates that should get the benefit of that contribution, by name and amount. The indictment includes a copy of the cancelled check.
The law in Texas forbids corporations from making contributions to political campaigns withiin sixty days before the election.
So in brief, the indictment alleges that Delay, Ellis, and Colyandro together agreed to violate that law, and that Ellis and Colyandro actually did the acts that violate the law.
The indictment doesn’t allege that Delay did anything.
Now, this is not unheard of. But it is highly unusual. A typical indictment would allege some conduct in support of the conspiracy on the part of each named conspirator. There is no legal requirement to do so: the crime of conspiracy is complete the moment the agreement is reached and some overt act is performed by one of the conspirators. But it’s unusual because of the problem of proof.
Normally, you can prove a conspiracy by inferring an agreement exists based on the acts of the accused. Here, there is no act alleged to have been committed by Delay, so the prosecution will have to prove conspiracy by testimonial or documentary evidence about the agreement.
In simpler terms: someone will have to get on the stand and say: “Yes, I heard Mr. Delay enter into an agreement with Colyandro and Ellis to break the law.” That someone could, of course, be Colyandro or Ellis. The problem is that it’s extremely weak evidence, especially if the testimony is procured in response to a deal offered by the prosecution.
The indictment alleges the bare elements of conspiracy: three people got together and agreed to commit a crime. Two of them actually went out and committed the crime. That makes the third guy guilty of the crime as well. The problem is in the proof. If that indictment reflects all that they have in the way of acts and evidence, then I would be VERY surprised to hear a jury return a guilty verdict.
One theory making the rounds is that someone in one of the corporations who contributed to the PAC is singing, and perhaps that person witnessed the conspiring.
Bricker:
Good summary, but I think the law in question is a lot more complex (based on the discussion I heard on Hardball yesterday). Corporate money can be used for things like payroll type expenses, and it the process that the PAC used was to keep two seperate bank accounts, one containing donations from individuals and the other from corporations. That allowed them to send corporate money to states that allowed its use, while keeping the money from individuals for those states (like Texas) that don’t. The prosecution is going to have to show that the seperatation of those two accounts was compromised, with the direction or advaice or whatever of DeLay. A daunting task…
One other thing to note that is kind of being lost in the shuffle. David Dreier (R-CA) was who Hastert orriginally wanted to take DeLay’s place for the duration. Unfortunately, the social conservatives won out, but Dreier still got elevated onto the House Leadership team. Dreier is a man to watch. He’s a Schwartzenneger-type Republican (supports stem cell research, oppsed the anti-SSM constitutional amendment) who is bright, articulate, and a hard-charging politician. Pay attention to this guy!! Post-Bush, I suspect (hope) that he and his type gain control of the GOP.
I’m not sure what’s you’re getting at. I’m not making a case for or against Ronnie Earle’s bias, I’m just pointing out how showing a ratio of Democratic vs. Republican prosecutions is an invalid argument for or against bias.
You need to understand that prior to the rise of the Republican party in Texas in the 80’s, virtually everyone was a “Democrat”. This does not mean that there was no dissention or partisanship - there was plenty of that. There were conservative Democrats and liberal Democrats, and everybody knew where everyone else was on the political scale. The conservative Democrats were Republican in every way except for the label. Separating the conservative Democrats from the liberal Democrats during this period is hardly splitting hairs.
Ronnie Earle began his political career by serving as state legislator from the most liberal city in Texas - Austin. Everybody knew he was one of the liberals, so when he moved on to the DA position, any prosecution of one of the conservative Democrats was branded with the bias claim.
So, yes, indeed, if you are going to use any kind of Democratic/Republican ratio for making a case for or against Earle’s bias, then you absolutely must take into consideration the political makeup during the time in question.
If you are going to go that far, you have to also ask how many liberal democrats were in power for that period; if no liberals had power to abuse, you can hardly call Earle partisan for prosecuting only conservative Democrats and Republicans.
Again, though, the problem is that this would make him a conspirator too. And he would be “singing” to avoid being charged, which makes his testimony suspect. The defense will paint a picture of a prosecutor eager to bring down a powerful member of the opposing party, offering a witness a deal to implicate an innocent man. That’s why you generally want to have some sort of evidence beyond the testimony of a conspirator. Indeed, there are some jurisdictions in which the testimony of a conspirator, without some sort of corroboration, is legally insufficient to convict. I don’t know (and rather doubt if) Texas follows that rule.
The indictment specifically alleges that the $190,000 check was drawn on the same account into which the $155,000 in contributions were deposited.
Just trying to weigh in on the “Texas Democrats” issue. Take a look at Warren Chisum.
His views have always been the same, only his party affiliation changed when the political landscape of Texas changed. It might be hard for someone outside of Texas to comprehend just how far right some of the Democrats around here were. If you research Chisum a bit, you’d think no way in hell was he ever a Democrat, yet he was, for 8 years of his legislative career. And this is just one (albeit the most extreme) example.
It’s a rule of the “House Republican Conference,” according to this story (DeLay announcing he will temporarily step down as majority leader (without resigining his House seat) following the indictement): http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,170681,00.html
Not to say that “it’s OK if the other guy does it”, but it would appear that being guilty of illegal campaign contributions is not sufficient to keep one from being the leader of one’s party in the House.
Pelosi wasn’t indicted on a State felony, her case was settled by the FEC. She still attempted to circumvent the legal contribution amounts, was fined $21K, and has retained her seat.
Sorry if this is off topic or not germane to the discussion. If “indictment” is the key word, then they are not in the same league. One can be indicted and still be innocent, just as one could pay a $21K fine and be innocent, just not willing to fight the charges.
The pundits I’ve heard interviewed on this subject seem always to begin their analysis with something like “Well, first you have to understand Texas politics…”
The law allows corporate funds to be used for “administrative” costs assocaited with a campaign (money paid to pollsters, office expenses, etc.). This is, IMNSHO, a perfect example of the futility of campaign finance law. There’s always a loophole somewhere.
If I’m reading the Texas Election Code correctly, this is at least part of the grey area:
[yakov smirnoff]
In Texas politics, pooch screws you!
[/ys]
I rise to nitpick. Nipples are exclusively a mammalian characteristic. Dewlaps, venom sacs, yes, nipples, no.