Monday, August 9, 2010

Election Day Vote Centers Coming to Collin Co. Again On Nov. 2nd

Late in the 2009 legislative session the Texas legislature passed HB719, which amends Section 43.007 of the Texas Election Code to require the Texas Secretary of State (SOS) to implement a program that allows Commissioner's Courts in selected counties to eliminate election precinct polling places and establish county-wide Vote Centers for certain elections.
These Election Day Vote Centers work almost exactly like Early Voting Vote Centers. During the early voting period for each election cycle, a number of polling places appear through out the county where any registered voter in the county can vote in any of those places throughout the early voting period.
Collin County gain approval from the Texas Secretary of State to use Vote Centers for the first time on election day in the November, 2009 constitutional amendment election.

The Collin County Commissioner's Court today voted to authorize Sharon Rowe, the Collin County Elections Administrator, to notify the Director of Elections in the Texas Secretary of State office, that Collin County seeks approval to implement the County Wide Vote Center Program again for the November 2, 2010 election. The Texas Secretary of State is expected to approve the request.

If approved by the Texas SOS, any Collin County registered voter will be able to vote at any of the 70 proposed countywide Vote Centers located around Collin County on Election Day, November 2, 2010.

In 2009, less than 5% of the voters turned out for the constitutional amendment election at one of the 57 countywide Vote Centers. The 2010 General Elections, which headlines the Gubernatorial contest between former Houston Mayor Bill White and incumbent Rick Perry, will likely have a turnout in excess of 38 percent of registered voters.

The 70 proposed countywide Vote Centers, which allows any registered voter to vote at any voting location on election day, is about half the number of polling locations that would be expected under the old local precinct voting location election model.

Saturday, July 31, 2010

New Republican Collin County District Clerk Plus Five Others Indicted For Organized Criminal Activity.

From the Dallas Morning News
by Ed Housewright:
July 31, 2010 - Patricia Crigger, the incoming Collin County district clerk, and five other office supervisors have been indicted on charges of engaging in organized criminal activity.

The indictments stem from a Texas Rangers investigation that alleges Crigger and the others pressured district clerk employees to work on Crigger's spring campaign.

Crigger received about 54 percent of the April 13 Republican primary runoff election vote, defeating law office manager Alma Hays.

She faces no Democratic opposition on the November 2, 2010 election ballot and is therefore due to take office Jan. 1, replacing longtime District Clerk Hannah Kunkle, who is retiring.

The general election is Nov. 2. The deadline to remove a candidate's name is Aug. 20, according to the Texas secretary of state's office.

If Crigger withdraws her name before then, the local Republican Party executive committee can name a replacement to be on the ballot, said Ann McGeehan, elections director for the secretary of state.

The Democratic Party of Collin County Executive Committee also would be allowed to place a name on the ballot, even though the party had no candidate in the primary.

Anyone can file as a write-in candidate through Aug. 24, McGeehan said.

If Crigger doesn't withdraw her name by Aug. 20, she will stay on the ballot. She would win the election if she receives the most votes.

If she is still under indictment, has not been convicted and decides not to take office Jan. 1, the county's state district judges would name her replacement, McGeehan said. The replacement would serve until the November 2012 general election and could seek election for the remaining two years of the term.

A candidate becomes ineligible to serve upon final conviction, McGeehan said. So if Crigger were convicted but appealed her case, she could take office while the appeal is resolved.

The Collin County Commissioners Court sets the budget for the district clerk and other elected officials. But commissioners can't fire an elected official or any of his or her staff.

County Judge Keith Self, who heads Commissioners Court, declined to comment on the indictments.

"Because it's a legal issue, I need to be very careful to make no comment," Self said.

Crigger and the other supervisors could not be reached for comment.

"It's really sad it's come to this," said Fred Moses, chairman of the county Republican Party. "She's worked hard for the party."

A judge issued arrest warrants on Friday and set a $5,000 personal recognizance bond for each. All six defendants appeared voluntarily at the Collin County Jail about 12:30 p.m. to be processed, said sheriff's spokesman John Norton. They left about an hour later, he said.

Under state law, a person can hold office while under indictment but can be removed if convicted.

Engaging in organized criminal activity is a second-degree felony punishable by two to 20 years in prison and up to a $10,000 fine.

The one-page indictments were returned Thursday against Crigger, Sherry Bell, Rebecca Littrell, Amy Mathis, Lorrie Robertson and Marcia Simpson.

The identical indictments say the women tampered with government records and committed theft by falsifying time and attendance records to show employees were working when they were not.

"This is a dark day for Collin County and its taxpayers," Hays said in a statement Friday. "I hope the legal process reveals the truth and that the integrity of the district clerk's office is restored. I am proud to say that I ran an honest campaign and that I had nothing to do with this investigation."

The six women indicted are among nine supervisors in the district clerk's office, which has 63 employees.

A search warrant affidavit from the Texas Rangers investigation says district clerk employees were asked to assist Crigger's campaign in "various ways, such as walking neighborhoods and holding campaign signs at polling places."

They were rewarded with paid time off, the document says.

It mentions five unnamed district clerk employees who talked with the Rangers during their investigation.

Armed with a search warrant, authorities seized computer hard drives, memory cards, Crigger campaign literature, calendars and other items on June 3.

At the time, Kunkle released a written statement on behalf of her and her office, which is responsible for keeping state district court records. She criticized the execution of the search warrant.

"If they would have come to me directly, I would have turned over anything they wanted and would not have had to close down the district clerk's office, disrupt county business and cause inconvenience to the employees and citizens of Collin County," the statement read.

Kunkle couldn't be reached for comment Friday.

Moses said he hadn't talked to Crigger since she was indicted. "We want to let the legal system take its course," he said.

Moses said he would talk to state Republican Party officials and the Texas secretary of state's office to determine how to pick Crigger's replacement if she doesn't take office.

"We need to see what our options are," Moses said. "We want to do what's in the best interests of the party."

Six supervisors in the Collin County district clerk's office each face two counts of engaging in organized criminal activity in identical indictments handed down Thursday.

Indicted: Patricia Crigger, Sherry Bell, Rebecca Littrell, Amy Mathis, Lorrie Robertson and Marcia Simpson

Count 1: Tampering with a governmental record by making false entries in time and attendance records

Count 2: Theft by obtaining money between $1,500 and $20,000 from Collin County by falsifying time and attendance records

Punishment if convicted: Two to 20 years in prison and up to a $10,000 fine

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Mother Jones: Serial Butt-Biting GOP Operative Sinks Teeth Into Texas Race

Mother Jones: Charles Hurth has a history of biting women's behinds. Now it's Texas Democrats who have to watch their asses.  (Republican Scheme To Divert Votes From Democrats In November?)
By Suzy Khimm - Mother Jones

Meet Charles Hurth III. The Missouri lawyer has a long history of setting up under-the-radar groups to help Republican operatives game elections.

But the most sordid thing about Hurth's past is not his political scheming. He's also what you might call a serial butt-biter, with a well-publicized track record of sinking his teeth into the rumps of college coeds.

He recently struck again in Texas—not by biting derrieres, but by spearheading an apparent GOP dirty trick to derail a Democrat's gubernatorial bid.

Last month, Hurth and two other GOP operatives—one a former top aide to Texas Gov. Rick Perry—were implicated in a scheme to bankroll a petition drive to put the Green Party on the ballot. It is an apparent ploy to siphon votes away from Perry's Democratic challenger, former Houston Mayor Bill White. He's an appealing target: Tied with Perry in the latest poll, White's the strongest gubernatorial contender that Texas Democrats have seen in years.

But Hurth's first claim to fame was being sued in 1987 for approaching a fellow law student in a bar and biting her on the buttocks so hard that she required medical attention. During the trial, Hurth admitted that he'd used the same toothy overture to approach two other women at fraternity parties—and he said that his latest victim should have taken the gesture as a compliment. The jurors didn't buy it, and Hurth was successfully sued for $27,500. Since then, he has dedicated himself to being a persistent pain in the butt for Democrats, setting up shop in a tiny Missouri town to create a clearinghouse for Republican electoral schemes. The latest came this spring, when Hurth and his allies succeeded in getting the Greens on the 2010 ballot.
In response, the Texas Democratic Party filed a lawsuit in early June against a Hurth-run nonprofit called Take Initiative America, as well as Arizona-based GOP consultant Tim Mooney and "unknown conspirators" for their role in the effort. Mooney has admitted that he funneled money through Hurth's organization to pay Free and Equal Inc., a Chicago-based petition-gathering company that ended up amassing 92,000 signatures for the Texas Green Party's ballot drive. According to a court document, Hurth's group spent $532,500 on the effort.
Mooney has repeatedly refused to say where the money came from—and denies that it was a GOP plot to bring down White. "Take Initiative America is a nonpartisan organization," he told the Dallas Morning News, which first broke the news of his involvement. "They'd like to see everybody have a chance to get on the ballot—the more choices the better."

Especially if those choices draw votes away from Democratic candidates. This isn't the first time that Mooney and Hurth have resorted to such schemes to help Republicans at the polls. In 2004, Hurth set up an organization called Choices for America that furtively solicited help from Republicans to get then-presidential candidate Ralph Nader on the ballot in New Hampshire, Nevada, and Pennsylvania, among other states. Mooney assisted with Hurth's 2004 effort, along with Dave Carney, George H.W. Bush's former political director who's now one of Rick Perry's top consultants. At the time, Carney acknowledged to the Dallas Morning News that he was trying to gather signatures for Nader in order to help George W. Bush get reelected. According to the script for the petition drive, canvassers were instructed to tell Bush supporters, "Without Nader, Bush would not be president."

Three years later, Hurth undertook yet another effort to manipulate electoral politics to the Republicans' advantage. In 2007, Take Initiative America funded a California ballot initiative that would have distributed the state's 55 electoral votes by congressional district instead of winner-takes-all. Had it succeeded, the effort would have greatly benefited Republican presidential contenders in the state. Hurth similarly refused to reveal the donor behind the effort, who finally came forward after Democrats accused the group of money-laundering and California officials vowed to investigate. Paul Singer, a hedge-fund manager and major Giuliani fundraiser, admitted that he gave $175,000 to the effort. (Hurth himself contributed $2,000 to Giuliani's presidential bid.) Then-Democratic National Committee Chair Howard Dean decried the initiative and pointed the finger at the Giuliani campaign, which denied any involvement. The Perry campaign has similarly denied any role in this year's Green Party ploy. But the tentacles of the scandal reach dangerously close to his camp.

It was allegedly Perry's former chief of staff, Mike Toomey, who approached a 22-year-old college student, Garrett Mize, to talk to the Green Party about accepting the outside help, according to Mize's court testimony. (Toomey, who's now a lobbyist, also helped mastermind former Rep. Tom DeLay's scheme to funnel secret corporate money to help the GOP's redistricting effort in 2003.) The Texas Green Party eagerly accepted the offer—even though a court-released email between Green Party officials reveals that party officials were acutely aware the money could be coming from Republican sources. The email also mentions Perry's top political consultant Anthony Holm as being interested in paying for 40 percent of the party's petitioning costs, though he's since denied any role in the schme.

The Texas Green Party has refused to withdraw from the ballot, saying it was "misled" about the kind of money that was used to fund GOP's scheme. "It's not like we intentionally did this," said Kat Swift, statewide coordinator for the Texas Green Party, at a press conference in early July. According to her account, the Texas Greens never knew what Take Initiative America really stood for or who might be involved. But Swift has since embraced the GOP help as a form of realpolitik, arguing that Texas has some of the most stringent requirements for getting on the ballot in the country. "Wherever the money came from doesn't bother me," she told the Dallas Morning News. "People are trying to open the ballot to increase democracy and so, who cares how they vote?"

It's unclear, though whether the Green Party's presence on the ticket will actually hurt White's chances, as the recent controversy has divided Green Party supporters. Some of its closest allies have turned against the party for knowingly accepting the GOP assistance—and refusing to back out even after discovering it was paid for by Hurth's nonprofit corporation (which qualifies, for the purposes of campaign-finance law, as corporate money). The Texas League of Conservation Voters, which has often backed Green Party candidates, said the party's "use of corporate, out-of-state money directed from partisan operatives for a petition drive corrupts and manipulates the electoral process." One local Green Party candidate for Travis County Clerk has already withdrawn his candidacy, citing his opposition to the Green Party's acceptance of corporate-funded help—even though the party itself has called for the end of corporate funding in all elections.

Texas Democrats, for their part, have given up their push to keep the Green Party off the ballot: they dropped part of their lawsuit last week after the (all-Republican) Texas Supreme Court decided to let the Green Party remain on the ballot while it reviewed the case. But the state's Democratic party says it will continue with a legal challenge in a lower court to discover who was funding the GOP-backed petition drive, contending that the source and use of Hurth's funds might have been illegal. If even more incriminating evidence surfaces, the Green Party scheme could really end up biting the Texas GOP in the butt.

Tuesday, July 6, 2010

Republican Scheme To Divert Votes From Democrats In November?

Updated July 6, 2010 @ 9:10 p.m.
Dallas Morning News - July 6, 2010: A Republican consultant with ties to Rick Perry - and to the governor's biggest campaign contributor -- is cited in court records among a growing number of GOP operatives involved in efforts to put the Green Party on the Texas ballot. At issue is the legality of a GOP-backed petition drive bankrolled with $532,000 through an out-of-state corporation to gather over 90,000 petition signatures to put Green Party candidates on the November general election ballot. Court records include a Green Party email that names Anthony Holm as, "a Republican in Texas [who] wants to give us 40 percent of the cost of petitioning." Holm, who had previously worked as a Perry staff member responsible for "Special Projects," heads a consulting firm that has been paid over $148,000 by the Perry campaign. The Texas Supreme Court has allowed the Green Party to certify its candidates while it reviews the case.

Originally Posted June 24, 2010 @ 5:10 p.m.
Early in June month the Dallas Morning News reported that the Green Party's petition drive to gain ballot access in Texas this November was set up by Arizona-based Republican consultant.

The news broke a week after the Green Party of Texas submitted 90,000 signatures to the Texas Secretary of State. Kat Swift, the state coordinator of the Green Party of Texas admitted, in the DMN story, "If it hadn't been for that donation, we wouldn't have been on the ballot." The Green Party had been struggling to get the required 43,991 petition signatures for its candidates to make the ballot.

A Green Party slate on the November ballot would likely drain votes from Democrat Bill White giving incumbent Republican Rick Perry an electoral advantage in the election for the governor's office.
DMN: Green Party officials said an outside group gathered the 92,000 signatures and gave them as "a gift" to the party, which delivered them to the secretary of state, who oversees Texas elections. If the secretary of state determines that enough of them are valid, the party will be able to field a slate of candidates for statewide offices for the first time since 2002.

"It's good news for Rick Perry, in the sense that the Green Party label draws votes away from White rather than Perry," said Rice University political science professor Mark Jones.
The Texas Democratic Party then filed for a temporary restraining order in State District Court to prevent the certification of Green Party candidates pending a fast track discovery process to gather facts to determine whether out-of-state Republican operatives used money from illegal corporate sources to gather the 92,000 signatures for the Green Party. Texas Democratic Party press release:
The Republicans secretly funded and organized a ballot petition operation that may have been funded by illegal, anonymous contributions, according to reports published this week by the Dallas Morning News. The TDP was forced to take legal action because those involved with this dubious secret Republican-Green Party scheme have refused to be upfront with Texans about the nature of this political contribution, and legal discovery would serve the public interest by shedding light on a murky transaction. As the Dallas Morning News stated in an editorial yesterday, "the legality of the money behind the Green petitions needs to be tested in court."

Texas Tribune interview with
TDP General Counsel Chad Dunn
Today State District Judge John Dietz issued an injunction blocking Green Party candidates from the November ballot after hearing arguments and sworn testimony. Judge Dietz said that restricted corporate money was used to support the signature drive and did not comply with state election law. Dietz said he expected his injunction against the Green Party, disqualifying them for a spot on the November ballot, will be stayed by a higher court. The Green Party, represented by former Republican state Supreme Court Justice Stephen Smith, plans to appeal to the high court on Monday. (Houston Chronicle, June 24, 2010)

A key witness testified under oath today that a top member of Rick Perry’s inner circle paid him about $12,000 to convince Green Party of Texas leaders to participate in an elaborate ballot petition scam. University of Texas student Garrett Mize testified that he was approached in late 2009 by Mike Toomey and Stuart Moss about contacting the Green Party to discuss raising money from wind energy proponents for a signature-gathering effort. Mize said Toomey paid him $2,000 a month but that he quit in April when it became clear there was no money to come from wind-energy advocates and that all money would likely come from Republican donors and "interests that did not want Democrats to do well." (Houston Chronicle, June 24, 2010)
Lone Star Project: Mike Toomey, the former chief of staff for the governor, paid Garrett Mize, a 22-year-old University of Texas student, from his personal checking account to present a formal proposal to Green Party leaders. The proposal suggests using out-of-state funds to gather signatures needed to field candidates [to bleed votes away from Democratic candidates] in the upcoming Texas [November] election. The memo notes that, “many of the donors will be people that simply do not want to see the Democratic Party win.” (The proposal by Mize can be seen here.)

Toomey’s direct involvement elevates the matter to a level of wrongdoing not seen since the Sharpstown scandal of the 1970s. Mike Toomey is a member of Perry’s inner circle and described as “close friends” (Source: Texas Monthly, February 2005). It is irrational to believe that Toomey would have made such an elaborate -- and likely illegal -- effort to field Green Party candidates without the knowledge and approval of the governor.

The morning testimony left it unclear what happened after the original plan proposed by Mize fell apart. A second plan was formulated just two weeks before the deadline to turn in ballot petitions. This second plan funneled $532,500 in corporate money [from Missouri-based Take Initiative America headed by Charles Hurth III, a Republican lawyer. The Missouri-based corporation founder has worked on similar efforts in the past with Perry's chief political strategist. ] to pay for the effort to gather signatures for the Green Party in order to qualify candidates for the Texas ballot. [The $532,000 to gather the signatures is deemed an in-kind contribution to the Texas Green Party.] Documents and testimony in the coming days should reveal whether Toomey masterminded this plan as well. (Source: Austin American-Statesman, June 24, 2010)

The Dallas Morning News broke the story that a secret donor funneled money through a non-profit corporation to finance the Green Party of Texas ballot initiative. The Lone Star Project has detailed the connection between the Republican operatives running the signature gathering effort and Perry’s top campaign consultant, Dave Carney. Today’s revelation connects the Green Party/GOP scam directly to Perry again by exposing his close confidant, Mike Toomey, as the mastermind behind an effort to field Green Party candidates.

This would not be the first time Mike Toomey has used secret corporate donations to illegally help elect Republicans in Texas. Toomey was implicated in the TRMPAC scandal and the Texas Association of Business lawsuit after the 2002 elections. The TRMPAC “indictments …noted that TAB board members Mike Toomey and Eric Glenn, both lobbyists, played prominent roles in soliciting money.” (Austin American-Statesman, September 8, 2005)

Toomey was sued alongside the Texas Association of Business for illegally using corporate money in elections. According to the Statesman, “Although state law generally forbids the spending of corporate money in connection with campaigns, Toomey and the corporations argue that the corporate money at the heart of the litigation was for issue ads - … and that therefore they were not required to tell the public who was paying for them….Other documents confirmed Toomey as a primary fundraiser among the 30 corporations that spent the money under the business association's name without revealing their identities.” (Austin American-Statesman, September 7, 2006)
Recanting earlier statements, Rick Perry chief consultant, Dave Carney, now admits knowing Tim Mooney and the Republicans who orchestrated this plan. Carney initially denied even knowing Mooney to the Dallas Morning News, then later admitted to the Texas Tribune that he did, in fact, know and work with Mooney in the past. (DMN: Perry political chief: May I amend my remarks?)

In legal action to place Green Party candidates on the November ballot, Green Party officials have called on several prominent Republican lawyers. Among them are Andy Taylor, who represented business interests in Republican Tom DeLay's effort to use corporate money to redraw congressional districts; Cleta Mitchell, co-chair of the Republican National Lawyers Association; and David Rogers, a plaintiff in the Hopwood court case over affirmative action at the University of Texas.

Perry became only the third governor in state history to have been elected by a plurality of less than 40 percent of votes cast in the 2006 election. In 2006 Perry faced a six-way race with former Democratic Congressman Chris Bell, Libertarian candidate James Werner; and three independent candidates – outgoing Republican state Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn, well-known Texas humorist Kinky Friedman, and write-in candidate James "Patriot" Dillon. Perry won with 38% of the vote.

GOP strategist Royal Masset says of Perry's 2010 opponent, “He (White) is plain-spoken. He is very specific-oriented. He’s kind of our nightmare ..." [The Houston Chronicle]

According to a new poll on the 2010 Texas gubernatorial race released by Public Policy Polling, Democratic challenger Bill White is running neck and neck with incumbent Republican Gov. Rick Perry. They each have 43 percent of the expected vote.

Perry campaign spokesman Mark Miner said the governor had "nothing to do with the Green Party efforts" (Houston Chronicle, June 24, 2010)


Bill White campaign video on Mike Toomey & the Green Party