It's pretty obvious that Speaker Craddick is willing to break the rules to hang on to his position as Speaker of the Texas House of Representatives. During the last legislative session, when it was believed that the votes were there to remove him, he refused to recognize any of his opponents on the House Floor.
When the House parliamentarian told him he was violating the rules, he fired him and appointed one of his flunkies to the position. The dictatorial move saved his position for that session, but there is a lot of opposition to his re-election in the next legislative session.
So what does Republican Craddick do? He funnels some illegal donations to three Democrats who are willing to vote for his re-election to the speakership. All three of the Craddick Democrats have opposition in the upcoming primary who would vote against Craddick if elected.
The Democrats (?) in question are Kevin Bailey of Houston, Kino Flores of Palmview and Aaron Pena of Edinburgh. Dawnna Dukes of Austin was also offered a donation but so far has turned it down.
The three Democrats have each received $50,000 from the Texas Jobs Political Action Committee. The problem is that this PAC was broke on December 31st. On January 10th, Craddick gave the PAC $250,000. The next day the PAC sent checks to the three Democrats. The timing is more than a little suspicious.
Texans for Public Justice, a watchdog group, says the donations are illegal. They have filed a complaint with the Travis County District Attorney and asked for a criminal investigation. Craddick has always been willing to bend the rules, but this time it looks like he may have stepped over the line and broken election laws.
As for the three traitorous Democrats, I hope the good Democratic voters in their districts will mete out a little justice on primary day and elect their opponents. You know there's something wrong with Democrats who receive most of their campaign funds from a Republican!
The people of Houston, Palmview and Edinburgh need to vote in some real Democrats.
Disgusting how these few would bring their whole party down for a few bucks.
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