But what exactly is this “ethics complaint”? Well, if past history is a guide, it is another attempt by a guy named William Elmer out of Huntsville, TX to mine data for a mailing list. Seriously. Dude even has a how to article set up on his “planned parenthood facts” website.
Data Mining – do it! How to do Open records requests
Why unredacted addresses of donors?
You can send out merge letters to all the donors of a PAC
He and some guy named Jim Jenkins out of Spring, TX set themselves up a GPAC called the Texas Ethics Advisory Board. Sounds official, doesn’t it? But it isn’t and even the Houston Chronicle’s Rick Casey figured it out.
When Houstonian Ginny Camfield received a letter from the Texas Ethics Advisory Board two weeks ago, it took her a few minutes to figure it out.
The letter began by saying that the Texas Ethics Commission had “launched an official inquiry into the campaign financing activities ofPlanned Parenthood of Houston and Southeast Texas Action Fund” based on a “sworn complaint.”
It enclosed of a copy of a page filed by the Planned Parenthoodpolitical action committee with the state Ethics Commission showing Camfield’s contribution of $75.
“If the record is not consistent with your knowledge of the facts or if you have any information relevant to the Texas Election Commission investigation, please send any applicable information to: (in large letters, centered on the page) Texas Ethics Advisory Board, 1016 Elkins Lake, Huntsville, TX 77340-8829.”
It looked quite official — until Camfield focused on a disclaimer in small type at the bottom of the page saying the “Advisory Board” was a general-purpose political committee unaffiliated with the Ethics Commission. And on the enclosures.
The “advisory board” complaint in that case went on to attack Annise Parker because she is, well you know. Yeah, that has much to do with “ethics”, doesn’t it?
Apparently, the GPAC isn’t doing so well at attracting donors. Their own ethics filings show that they have raised exactly zero dollars since they started. But then again, that isn’t the goal, data mining is. I tried to contact Mr. Jenkins but he was out of the office so I had to leave a message, which has not been returned at this point. I was trying to get a copy of the actual complaint that they filed.
Makes you wonder what the nutroots will pull out of their hat next? Only five more days until this nonsense is over and they find something or someone else to attack.
Speaking of Felicia Cravens and the Houston Tea Party Society, she published an interesting Q&A today. I told you there were some adult tea parties out there. A few of them got together and interviewed both Speaker Straus and Ken Paxton. Not sure why they didn’t interview Warren Chisum but it is what it is. Anyways, this is a great example of how tea parties can inform their members. Put the facts on the table and let the members decide. Versus sending out malicious, misleading emails favoring one candidate over another. Imagine that. Adults in the room.
Although it isn’t a transcript, we’ll trust that it is an honest representation of the interviews. Happy reading.