Bills Renew Push for Posting Financial Disclosures
This is one in a series of occasional stories about ethics and transparency in the part-time Texas Legislature.
State Rep. Donna Howard, D-Austin, and Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, each filed legislation on Thursday that would require personal financial statements submitted to the Texas Ethics Commission to be made available online.
Senate Bill 417, filed by Ellis, would require the Ethics Commission to make financial disclosures available no later than 10 business days on the commission’s website. The bill would also require the commission to group these filings together by office sought and/or being held.
“I filed this legislation ...
Comments (2)
Jim Vance
A small and important step in the right direction toward greater transparency for enhanced voter education and awareness, but these bills address only a narrow slice of the expansive view involving the campaign contributions which influence the elections process at all levels that is required to achieve real transparency.
A particular change in the law that is desperately needed would establish a consistent mandate for both candidates and PACs with regard to elected office, statewide or local ballot issues (i.e., Constitutional or Charter amendments and bond elections) that mandatory filing reports must be posted online through a common TEC website and a uniform requirement for reporting of 3 days prior to any election date will apply to all regardless of the type of election or entity. The combination of those two characteristics would substantially reduce or eliminate the longstanding practice by which massive amounts of unreported contributions (mostly from likely or hopeful industry beneficiaries) flood into local bond elections in the days immediately prior to the election date, but aren't formally acknowledged or released until the first post-election reporting date months later, by which time the "pay to play" game has long since been consummated.
gypsy314 ne
Do not trust democrats they are all the same take a look at the democrats in washington DC on the transparent promises and the people are still wait 5 years later. Shut all democrats down now. When truth comes out about the democrats they will have to pay the piper soon enough.