Throughout his campaign for Agriculture Commissioner, former State Representative turned lobbyist Sid Miller has not constrained himself to the truth while seeking the support of Republican voters. Miller’s lies were on full display at a recent candidate forum in Tarrant County, the video of which is available online here.
Here are a few examples of Sid Miller’s dishonesty on full display, along with documentation to refute his bogus claims:
Sid Miller’s Lie:< Miller says his lobby work was for pro-life, school choice, and agriculture groups, “helping the same people I helped before” (1:17:45)
Truth: Miller’s own filings with the Texas Ethics Commission (available here) indicate he made as much as $405,000 last year lobbying on behalf of eleven different clients. None of Miller’s lobby clients appear to be pro-life or school choice organizations. Only one of his lobby clients, the Texas Nursery and Landscape Association, appears to be an agriculture group. This was also one of his smallest lobby clients, with Miller reporting under $10,000 in compensation from them.
Miller’s largest lobby clients, with each generating between $50,000 and $99,999 in lobby income for Miller were Snap Trends, Inc. and Impact Texas Communications. Snap Trends is a government vendor of social media tracking services that does business with several state agencies and other public entities. On his most recent personal financial statement, Miller also reported owning between 5,000 and 9,999 shares of stock in this privately held government contractor.
Impact Texas Communications is a lobbying and public relations company owned by Miller’s longtime political consultant and business partner Todd M. Smith. In 2009, Miller was fined by the Texas Ethics Commission for failing to disclose a business relationship between him and Smith.
Miller’s third largest lobby client, which generated between $25,000 and $49,999 in lobby income for him, was Sun Partners Capital, LP. This company is involved in the payday loan industry.
Unless the same people Miller “helped” as a state legislator were state vendors, payday lenders, and his lobbyist business partner/political consultant, it sure looks like Sid Miller’s career as a revolving door lobbyist was motivated by financial gain, not ideology or altruism.
Sid Miller’s Lie: Miller says my ethics complaint against him regarding over $21,000 he personally profited from a loan he made to his campaign does not constitute a violation of the law and will not be considered by the Ethics Commission (1:19:00)
Truth: This past December, I filed a sworn complaint against Miller with the Texas Ethics Commission regarding over $21,000 in interest payments Miller personally pocketed from a personal loan he made his campaign. Miller has admitted that he personally profited from this loan, but contends he did nothing illegal. I disagree, and believe the interest payment violated state law. The complaint also included allegations on possible clerical errors I also found, such as that Miller did not report the loan on his personal financial statements and that Miller’s campaign finance reports failed to report the total amount of outstanding loans.
On December 19, 2013, I received a letter from the Texas Ethics Commission accepting my complaint as it related to the improper interest payment as well as Miller’s 2012 personal financial statement. I was notified in this letter that the Commission would not pursue any allegations relating to Miller’s 2011 personal financial statement or the reporting of loan totals. On March 24, 2014, I received a status letter from the Texas Ethics Commission informing me that my complaint against Miller is currently pending.
I have publicly released all correspondence I have sent to or received from the Texas Ethics Commission regarding my complaint against Sid Miller, and I call on him to do the same. Instead of publicly defending his decision to pocket over $21,000 from his campaign, Miller has instead chosen to lie about me and the status of my complaint.
Sid Miller’s Lie: Miller says “I did, uh, not back Joe Straus against, uh, or say anything derogatory about Ken Paxton when he ran against Joe Straus” (1:20:40)
Truth: Sid Miller was one of the most visible and vocal supporters of Joe Straus’ campaign for Speaker against Ken Paxton. In a letter to conservative activist Donna Garner dated January 4, 2011, Miller wrote in strong support of Speaker Straus’ re-election as Speaker. Miller also had some choice words about Ken Paxton, stating “It seems that Ken Paxton was willing to sacrifice Craddick’s conservative leadership of the Texas House and endanger his reelection as Speaker so that he could support a more moderate legislator from his home county.”
Miller further attacked Paxton and his conservative credentials in this letter, saying “Ken Paxton promises that he will be more conservative than Joe Straus, but the record is clear. At a time when we needed him to stand up for conservative values, Ken Paxton was willing to put geography ahead of conservative values. I am simply not willing to reward that kind of betrayal.”
In addition to his letter to Garner, Miller also wrote a widely distributed open letter in support of Joe Straus to then-State Representative Leo Berman, a vocal Straus opponent. In this letter, Miller accused Berman of making “vicious personal attacks against our Republican brothers and sisters” and “childish attacks which do nothing but empower liberals.”
After Joe Straus was re-elected as Speaker at the start of the 2011 legislative session, he appointed Sid Miller as Chairman of the Homeland Security & Public Safety Committee.
Sid Miller has aggressively sought the support of many of the same organizations and activists that have opposed Joe Straus over the past several years. Instead of being open and honest about his support of Straus and attacks against Ken Paxton, Sid Miller has instead chosen to lie to these voters in an attempt to gain their support for his campaign for Agriculture Commissioner.
Texans deserve an Agriculture Commissioner with honesty and integrity, not a political opportunist like Sid Miller who will tell shameless lies to court votes. Tommy Merritt deserves your vote in the upcoming Republican runoff.
Mark McCaig is President of Texans For Individual Rights and a former member of the State Republican Executive Committee.
Tom Zakes says
This from the Ethics Commission Website:
The Texas Ethics Commission unanimously condemns the use of misleading campaign
communications regarding the activities of the Commission.
The use of the statements “a sworn complaint has been filed against Candidate A” or “the Texas
Ethics Commission is investigating a complaint against Candidate A” are improper attempts to
mislead the public. It is therefore the unanimous opinion of the bipartisan Texas Ethics Commission
that the use of such language in campaign communications is an unfair practice and should be
judged accordingly by voters.
By law, the Texas Ethics Commission investigates every sworn complaint, whether it has merit or
not. Likewise, any citizen of the State of Texas has the right to file a sworn complaint, whether it
has merit or not. The fact that a complaint has been filed or the Commission is investigating
provides no meaningful information to the voting public. Anyone can file a complaint and the
Commission must investigate the complaints it receives.
If violations of the statutes under the Commission’s jurisdiction have occurred, the proper way to
inform the public of these violations is to describe the facts of the violation or the actual findings of
the Commission after the conclusion of an investigation.
If a candidate can’t put this in his ads, his backers shouldn’t put it in a blog post, either.
I haven’t decided yet how to vote in the Ag Commish race, but if this is the best Merritt can say about himself, it doesn’t bode well.
I’m Tom Zakes, and I approve this message.
Mark McCaig says
Tom,
I bring up the ethics complaint issue here for no other reason to show that Sid Miller is not being truthful about this issue. I filed this complaint nearly 5 months ago, well before primary election day (let alone the runoff). I agree with the Ethics Commission’s resolution (although it is not binding on any candidate or campaign). The fact that an ethics complaint has been filed against Miller is irrelevant. As the resolution states, informing the public of the facts of the alleged violation is entirely proper. The relevant issue here is that Miller has admitted to personally pocketing more than $21,000 from his campaign account. Even if this is legal, as Miller contends, it is highly inappropriate. As I stated in my post, Miller has chosen to lie about this issue instead of defending his conduct.
theturkeyvulture says
The fact that this sack of crap even made it to a Republican run-off disgusts me to no end. The warning signs about this candidate were out there before the March primary. Articles in the Dallas Morning News about possible ethics problems. Charges that he abused his own show horses. That he was essentially fired by his own constituents and lost his seat in the Texas House.
There was a perfectly good candidate in J. Allen Carnes. But Carnes didn’t play the game and run against the feds or Obamacare. He talked about freakin’ AGRICULTURE. Imagine that?!
The Grand Ol’ Party in Texas has become the party of stupid. Home of the lowest common denominator voters who feed on red meat. Mindless Pavlovian dogs.
I voted Republican in this past primary and it may be the last time. I’ve been a Republican since 1993 a few months after Clinton started his first term. At that time the GOP was a party of ideas. In recent years it has become a morally and intellectually bankrupt party of “NO”. They couldn’t even pass immigration, Social Security or Medicare reform when they had the numbers advantage early in the George W. Bush administration.
I keep hoping they’ll see the light. We need two viable political parties.
And don’t give me that crap about the “miracle of Texas”. It’s all fracking. The GOP and Rick Perry had nothing to do with it other than the sense to stay out of the way.
Fred Blanton says
Smells
Verity says
I would be very disappointed if all of this leads to the election of Tommy Merritt, who is less a Republican than any candidate running save Wendy Davis.
Craig W says
Once again liberal trial Mark McCaig and his liberal candidate of choice—Ag Commissioner Tommy Merritt—have chosen to misuse the Texas Ethics Commissioner and abuse Texas taxpayers in a misguided attempt to try to generate support for their failing campaign by filing frivolous ethics complaints against Sid Miller. They are using a play right out of the progressive playbook. If you can’t win on your own record, try to slime your opponent with as much mud as possible—regardless whether any of the charges have merit. Pardon the pun, but their ludicrous accusations against Sid Miller simply have no Merritt!
Mark McCaig says
“Craig W”- Your comment is the perfect example of what is wrong with Miller and his campaign. Hiding behind an anonymous blog comment, you attack me personally and accuse me of filing a “frivolous” ethics complaint while providing absolutely no factual basis whatsoever for your claims. Miller does not dispute the fact he personally profited over $21,000 from his campaign and if you take a look at section 253.0351(c) of the Texas Election Code you will see where the law prohibits a candidate or officeholder from reimbursing himself for a personal loan in an amount that exceeds the amount reported as a loan. I would also direct you to section 571.176 of the Texas Government Code, which imposes significant financial penalities on those who file truly frivolous complaints. I have no interest in risking severe financial penalties by making frivolous complaints and will gladly defend the merit of my complaint in any forum.
Let me also remind you Sid Miller could have requested an advisory opinion from the Ethics Commission to in order to bring more clarity to the issue of the legality of personally profiting from his campaign in the manner that he has. Sid has refused to do so. I’ve also called on Sid to publicly release all correspondence he has sent to or received from the Ethics Commission regarding my complaint against him. Again, he has refused to do so. I’m also curious as to why if Sid *really* thinks it is okay to charge and collect 10{997ab4c1e65fa660c64e6dfea23d436a73c89d6254ad3ae72f887cf583448986} interest on personal loans to his campaign, as was the subject of my complaint, that his personal loans to his current campaign are at 0{997ab4c1e65fa660c64e6dfea23d436a73c89d6254ad3ae72f887cf583448986} interest.
David Hoefler says
Here is all you need to know about the Republican run-off race for Texas Ag Commissioner—former legislator Tommy Merritt was named by Rice University as the most liberal Republican in the Texas House, while his opponent, Sid Miller, was named one of the top three conservatives in the Texas House. That says it all and explains why Tommy and his campaign errand boy, liberal trial lawyer Mark McCaig, have focused their entire campaign on frivolous ethics complaints against his conservative opponent, Sid Miller, filed by—guess who? Mark McCaig. McCaig works for who? Liberal trial lawyer Steve Mostyn—the largest Wendy Davis, Battleground Texas, and Barack Obama donor ii Texas.