Ethics complaints against Austin candidates won’t be resolved before the election

AUSTIN (KXAN) — Ethics complaints filed against two Austin City Council candidates and two Austin mayoral candidates won’t be resolved until after Election Day, the Austin Ethics Commission revealed this week.

Complaints filed against Austin Mayor Kirk Watson and mayoral candidate Doug Greco were scheduled for final hearings Wednesday, but were postponed.

“There was kind of a last-minute delay. … I didn’t like that, but sometimes things are what they are, that’s a decision the president makes,” said Michael Lovins, chairman of the Austin Ethics Review Commission.

Final hearings for both mayoral candidates are expected to take place at the Ethics Review Commission’s next regularly scheduled meeting on Nov. 13, more than a week after Election Day.

“I think this is the last day it could have happened properly before the election, so I’m not asking to rush it at this point,” Greco said. “But I was prepared and returned over $6,000 and I look forward to the hearing.”

Meanwhile, complaints against city council candidates Krista Laine of District 6 and Ashika Ganguly of District 10 were later filed — and preliminary hearings for those complaints could be heard next month, depending on the availability of meeting space and the body’s capacity to obtain a quorum.

Complaints against Greco, Watson

The complaints against Watson and Greco allege that both candidates exceeded the amount of money they can take from donors outside the city limits.

Filed by former Ethics Commission member Betsy Greenberg, the complaint uses publicly available campaign finance records to show that both candidates exceeded the city’s $46,000 cap.

An activist group called “Austinites for a Little Less Corruption” in the late 1990s proposed limiting outside donations through a citizen-driven petition. According to Greenberg, the petition was approved with 72% of the vote in 1997.

The challenge, however, argued James Cousar, who represented Watson in his preliminary hearing, is that the rule does not change how candidates are required to extract donor data, particularly addresses. This makes compliance and compliance tracking a real challenge.

“There is nothing in Texas law or the City of Austin campaign ordinance that requires any contributor to tell a campaign their home or residential address,” Cousar explained. He went on to tell commissioners, “If the city of Austin wants to create a form … and say, in order for us to comply with the Charter, the campaign has to report a home address, we will do that, but that’s not the current requirement. “

That, Cousar argued, was the discrepancy. While Greenberg said publicly available data indicates that Watson received $52,504.77 (not including addresses like PO boxes and businesses, which would bring that total to $68,104.77), the campaign for Watson provided documents to KXAN which appear to show the campaign followed by donors who used an address outside the city limits and the home address specifically requested and tracked.

After that measure, the incumbent received only $45,000 in contributions outside of Austin in compliance with the rule, Cousar said and the documents show.

Is the rule legal?

While Watson’s team argued that Watson took extra steps to comply with the rule and was not represented in public records, Greco’s attorney pointed out a federal lawsuit regarding the rule, which has since been dismissed by a judge.

Greco — the former leader of Central Texas Interfaith — sued, saying the rule could be unconstitutional. He told KXAN after the dismissal that the judge did not rule on the constitutionality, but rather looked back at how the city’s trial was conducted.

“Why should my niece, who is going to vote for the first time, she’s 18 … why can’t she donate to her uncle, but the niece of another candidate in west Austin can donate to their campaign? It’s not fair,” Greco told reporters when he filed that lawsuit.

That sentiment was echoed in his preliminary hearing, along with assurances from Greco’s attorney that he, too, followed the rule.

“Mr. Greco has no interest in ignoring or breaking the law or knowingly or intentionally breaking the law. Rather, he filed his lawsuit because he believes it is incredibly important to follow the law and he wants to be able to run the campaign on time seeking clarification of the law from the federal court,” said Greco’s attorney, Holt Lackey.