Texas Association of Business pleads guilty to violating campaign finance laws

Tuesday, October 21st, 2008
by Gardner B.

The Texas Association of Business pled guilty today to violating campaign finance laws in 2002 and will pay a fine because of it.  The TAB took corporate donations and then used that money to pay staff that were actively campaigning in 24 Texas House races.

This violation of campaign finance law helped lead to the election of Tom Craddick as speaker of the Texas House.  Everything that has happened since then can be traced back to what happened as a result of the 2002 election.  Some of the results of this new leadership included:  the deregulation of university tuition, the slashing of health care for children, putting tax breaks for big companies in front of properly funding public education, the limiting of access to the courthouse for ordinary Texans and the protection of homebuilders from their shoddy construction practices.

Yesterday was the start of early voting.  It’s up to all of us to clean out the House and bring in new leadership that puts working Texas families as their top priority.