November 13, 2017      5:21 PM
Ethics Commission is asked whether RPT speaker commitment forms are legislative bribery
Campaign finance laws “seek to prohibit bribery in the process, including attempts by outside GPACs to meddle in the constitutional requirement that members of the House of Representatives select a speaker.”
The
state’s campaign finance regulator is being asked by a state lawmaker to weigh
in on whether it amounts to illegal bribery for the Republican Party of Texas
to ask GOP lawmakers to pledge to vote a certain way for the lower chamber’s
presiding officer in exchange for monetary support, Quorum Report has
learned.
Prior
to the beginning of the filing period for candidates, the party posted this “speaker commitment”
form on its
website asking candidates to turn them in when filing for office. “Texas House
Republicans should stand unified and united in their selection of the next
speaker, whoever that may be,” the party said.
Now,
in a letter to the Texas Ethics Commission, a member of the Legislature argues that
even though the Republican Party “does expressly disclaim that their ‘commitment
form’ ‘is not intended to aid or defeat a ‘speaker candidate,’” that statement doesn’t
matter because “the law regarding legislative bribery by a GPAC applies much
more broadly, stating that ‘a person commits an offense if, with the intent to
influence a member of or candidate for the house of representatives in casting
a vote for speaker of the house of representatives, the person’ attempts to
have votes given or withheld for speaker.”
By Scott Braddock
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