On the Records: What Candidates Buy

As we noted last year, the Texas Ethics Commission wants more specificity from candidates and officeholders about their campaign spending, so it adopted new rules requiring them to use 19 specific subject categories describing any goods, services or other things of value purchased by their campaigns. 

The rules are intended to make political spending more transparent. In the past, some candidates used vague terms such as "campaign expense" to describe transactions. This led to allegations that candidates were diverting contributions for personal use, a violation of state law. The new rule went into effect for expenditures after July 1, 2010, allowing — for the first time — real categorization of campaign spending. (Note: We've shortened some categories so they fit within the charts). 

Here a breakdown for all major-party candidates on our 2010 list (from July 1 to September 23, the most-recent reporting period):

Here's that list without the governor's race:

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