Bill To Remove Final Remaining Checks on GOP Corruption Moves Forward in Texas Senate

[TexasTowelie]

This Monday, the State Affairs Committee of the Texas Senate moved forward with SB 10, a bill that would move the Public Integrity Unit (PIU), currently housed in Travis County, into the jurisdiction of the state’s attorney general. The committee passed the bill on partisan lines, voting 7-2 to move discussion of the bill to the full Senate.

The Austin American-Statesman summarized what exactly SB 10, authored by Joan Huffman (R-Houston) would do:

Under Senate Bill 10 by Sen. Joan Huffman, the attorney general’s office would conduct the initial investigation of complaints against officials, with help from the Texas Rangers.

If the investigation yields “reasonable suspicion,” a state judge would send the findings to a district or county attorney who is outside of the official’s county. That prosecutor could terminate the case or continue with prosecution.

If the case goes to trial, under SB 10, the proceedings would be held in the public official’s hometown.

The PIU is “a state-funded division of the Travis County District Attorney’s Office {that} investigates public corruption, insurance fraud, and motor fuels tax fraud.” Because it is housed in the Travis County DA’s office (which has been occupied by a Democrat since the PIU’s inception in the early 1980s), Huffman and other Republican legislators claim that the PIU is overly partisan, and unfairly targets Republicans. Yet, the PIU has actually investigated more Democrats than Republicans. If anything, Republicans are the ones who have politicized the office–Rick Perry is the one who threatened to veto the PIU’s budget if Travis County DA Rosemary Lehmberg did not resign after her DUI, leading to his current prosecution on corruption charges.

In actuality, because the PIU has always been controlled by Democrats in the face of increasing Republican power, it has emerged as one of the few checks on their corruption. As one of the limited number institutions with statewide power that isn’t controlled by the GOP, the PIU has served to hold Republicans accountable. Gregg Cox, the current head of the PIU, also pointed out that the agency’s location in Travis County allows it to “to avoid conflicts of interest that can mar prosecutions of local officials.” It also allows it to avoid the conflict of interest that might emerge if the AG’s office had to investigate a corrupt state agency that it ultimately would have to defend in court. Moving the office out of Travis County would remove all of these protections, making prosecution of corruption even more difficult.

Read more: http://www.burntorangereport.com/diary/29877/bill-to-remove-final-remaining-checks-on-gop-corruption-moves-forward-in-texas-senate