When government fails to adhere to its own laws and regulations, Joe Citizen holds the trump card. In Texas, Bay area resident John Cobarruvias has succeeded in prodding the Texas Ethics Commission to provide better oversight of campaign finance through filing ethics complaints. Mr. Cobarruvias is careful not to file frivilous complaints. He researches the issues, verifies the facts, and submits succinct, factual complaints to the Ethics Commission. In an era where dollars seem to dominate politics, John Cobarruvias's efforts show that one person can influence the system. John Cobarruvias is not a "grandstander". He works in the background. Occasionally he blogs on an issues. He seems to prefer to put the spotlight on the issues rather than on himself. He looks at process and the law and how Texas lawmakers and regulatory agencies apply the law and follow the the process for the benefit of all Texans. He's made headlines this week:
Activist: State's campaign finance oversight out-of-focus.
By Lee McGuire- KHOU Channel 11 News - Dec. 20, 2007
It’s a state agency that spends $2 million of your dollars every year, making sure that politicians are doing the right thing when it comes to campaign finance.
John Cobarruvias claims the Texas Ethics Commission is not earning its keep.
The Texas Ethics Commission was set up to help promote confidence in government, but one man thinks taxpayers aren’t getting their money’s worth. The rules say we’re supposed to know exactly what every member of the Texas Legislature buys with their campaign donations. But two years ago, it seems nearly half of our elected officials broke those rules.
Then, all of a sudden, nearly all that ended. Now, lawmakers appear to be following the campaign finance rules.
The reason has very little to do with the state agency set up as a $2 million-a-year guardian of legislative ethics — and everything to do with one man, with his home computer, in Clear Lake
Read more on KHOU.com
AP - The Texas State Capitol
“I think the Ethics Commission is incompetent, completely incompetent,” John Cobarruvias said. “There is no other word to describe what they’re doing right now.”
He is something of an activist.
“You should have basic consumer protection,” he said.
In 2002, he was protesting the state’s oversight of homebuilders.
Now, he’s protesting the state’s oversight of the Legislature. And wondering whether the Texas Ethics Commission does anything at all. He looked at campaign finance records and found lawmakers spent about $1 million in campaign funds on their credit card bills. But nowhere did they say what they bought with those cards.
“Right,” Cobarruvias said. “You don’t know what he’s bought at all.”
It meant that tens of thousands of purchases that should have been disclosed were not. Did anyone at the Ethics Commission even notice?
“Oh, absolutely not,” Cobarruvias said. “The Ethics Commission has been absolutely worthless.”
Employees of the Ethics Commission don’t do interviews. Their chief counsel said they do audit campaign finance reports, and in the last fiscal year, the commission issued $700,000 in penalties.
Of that $700,000 total — roughly $678,000 were penalties for filing late. In other words, it often didn’t matter what was in the report, as long as it was filed on time.
“The system is very confusing and very complex,” Sen. Dan Patrick, R-Houston, said.
Sen. Dan Patrick doesn’t think the Ethics Commission needs more power.
He would like them to do a better job explaining the rules to candidates and officeholders. And he thinks it shouldn’t have taken a man in Clear Lake to uncover the million-dollar credit card problem.
“The Ethics Commission should have caught this,” Sen. Patrick said.
“It’s such a glaring problem to say you shouldn’t do this; it’s not the way it should be done.”
“This is what we want to see,” Cobarruvias said.
Since Cobarruvias raised the issue -- most lawmakers have now filed “corrected reports,” explaining what they bought with those credit cards. And most of it was run-of-the-mill: bottled water, gasoline, campaign signs.
“And I think that is just absolutely great,” Cobarruvias said. “That is what we’re looking for.”
But in some cases, he filed formal complaints with the Ethics Commission.
Since then, the Commission has fined eight lawmakers over issues he’s raised.
To put that in perspective, the Ethics Commission has only fined seven other lawmakers for any other issue in the last five years.
“They’re a database, and they collect this information and that’s about it,” Cobarruvias said.
It’s a paper trail that uncovered a problem in government — for both the people you elect and the ones you do not.
On his Bay Area Houston blog, activist John Cobarruvias responded to Senator Patrick's comments:
KHOU TV of Houston Texas had a great story (with video) on the Texas Ethics Commission:
Texas Ethics Commission called "incompetent".
Wednesday, Dec. 19, 2007
“I think the Ethics Commission is incompetent, completely incompetent,” John Cobarruvias said. “There is no other word to describe what they’re doing right now.”
Yep. that is me being blunt and to the point. To be fair, the staff of the TEC has been very helpful and easy to work with. On many occasions they have provided advice and answered all our questions. And I was not the Lone Ranger. Thanks to those anonymous individuals for their help.
The problems with the lack of preventative measures is apparent when you review "Spending Campaign Cash. The Series.". Over a 2 year period almost $1Million of campaign expenditures were hidden behind credit cards and another $2Million in expenditures hidden by reimbursements to the office holder or staff.
Senator Dan Patrick, the self proclaimed champion of ethics reform, repeated the same old argument:Sen. Dan Patrick doesn’t think the Ethics Commission needs more power. He would like them to do a better job explaining the rules to candidates and officeholders. And he thinks it shouldn’t have taken a man in Clear Lake to uncover the million-dollar credit card problem.By the way, Patrick has over $73,000 in undisclosed expenditures for the last two years. This includes over $59,000 to Court Koenning Consulting for "Reimbursement". Yep, the Ethics Commission should have caught this.
“The Ethics Commission should have caught this,” Sen. Patrick said. “It’s such a glaring problem to say you shouldn’t do this; it’s not the way it should be done.”
And actually that is the point. The TEC has the authority to perform audits that could prevent all these problem.§ 571.069. Review of Statements and Reports; Audits
(a) The commission shall review for facial compliance randomly selected statements and reports filed with the commission and may review any available documents. The commission shall return for resubmission with corrections or additional documentation a statement or report that does not, in the opinion of the commission, comply with the law requiring the statement or report.
But they haven't done them. The audits for all of our elected officials could easily be automated or could be accomplished with a few hours of work. It just isn't that hard. Instead the TEC recommends citizens who have performed these audits for them to file formal complaints.
This shouldn't be the process used to clean this problem up. Unfortunately the TEC claims it doesn't have the man power to perform the audits so it relies on citizens to file complaints to further stress the limited resources of the TEC.
And if this is what they want, this is what they will get come Jan 16, the day after campaign finance reports are due.
Read more on Bay Area Houston blog.
Spending Campaign Cash. The Series.
By John Coby - Bay Area Houston Blog - Monday, June 04, 2007
Over the last few months in 2006 and 2007 I have been researching campaign finance reports from Texas State Officials, concentrating on spending habits. This was a direct result of the research on State Representative John Davis (R-Houston).
Base upon this research, it is clear from the number of elected officials who have violations in their reports the Texas Ethics Commission is either incompetent, or not interested in adequately monitoring, preventing, training, or taking corrective action against those who have violated the trust of the citizens of Texas.
The TEC has a motto "Promoting Public Confidence in Government", but instead is nothing more than a repository for campaign finance information that provides little if any confidence to the public. It is near worthless.
See full article. He recaps campaign finance coverage in the Dallas Morning News and Houston Chronicle and gives links to "Spending Campaign Cash for State Wide Officers, State Senators and Senators Elect Houston Bay/Area State Representatives.
In the DFW area, DFW Regional Concerned Citizens has been monitoring local governments websites and evaluating adherence to Local Government Chapter 176. We are concerned that the legislation passed to give citizens access to information about relationships between decision makers and those who are paid for services/contracts by government is not being followed. One of the biggest obstacles to compliance is the attitude of TXDOT. The TxDOT attorney for the Dallas region told Faith Chatham that since TxDOT is a state agency it does not have to adhere to the Local Government Code. DFWRCC's position is that TxDOT receives bids and administers contracts which require recommendations and votes by city, county and COG officials. These contracts include payments of local tax dollars. Local and regional officials are required by law (Chapter 176) to disclose their relationships with people or businesses which seek or receive payment by tax dollars and /or selected/rejected through their recommendations or vote. Since TXDOT receives and administers the bids, the failure of TxDOT to comply with Chapter 176 hinders disclosure by local and regional officials who play roles in decision making during the planning process for major infrastructure projects.
Complaints on most Texas Ethics violations goes to the Texas Ethics Commission, however, the Legislature voted to require complaints about violations of Chapter 176 to go to the local District Attorney. Since County Commissioner's Courts and Councils of Government appropriate funds and grants for law enforcement and the District Attorney's office, requiring that the complaints be filed through the local District Attorney creates a buffer of retience and self preservation. Few sane District Attorney's will eagerly pursue misdemeanor complaints against the officials who must vote to fund the District Attorney's office and law enforcement programs! We haven't filed a complaint yet. In 2008 one of our members may follow Mr. Cobarruvias' example and utilize the ethics complaint process to bring more officials and agencies into compliance with Texas Ethics Laws.
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