March 21, 2006

State GOP Chair's Race Takes Shape Amid
War of Words over Party Finances in Texas

By Mike Hailey
Capitol Inside Editor

Texas Republicans who used a united front to oust Democrats from power in the state are now battling each other in an escalating war of words that's setting the stage for a potentially explosive state chair's race that delegates will settle at the GOP's state convention in San Antonio in June.

But this year's fight isn't about legalizing school vouchers, outlawing abortion or other volatile policy questions that have defined past debates among GOP activists in Texas. With less than three months remaining before convention delegates vote on a leadership slate, Texas Republicans are fighting over money and the way party leaders are managing it, disclosing it and funding political operations at a time when GOP candidates, committees and the state party itself have been under scrutiny for campaign finance activities in recent years.

Another rematch appears to be shaping up between Republican Party of Texas Chairwoman Tina Benkiser and former RPT official Gina Parker, a Waco lawyer who had substantial support from some key grassroots leaders and activists in state chair races that came up short in 2003 and 2004. The potential wild card for a state chair's campaign in 2006 is Nate Crain, a former Dallas County chairman who's become a self-appointed watchdog on the way Republican officials in Austin are handling money they raise and spend. Other candidates could emerge between now and the state convention that's set for June 2-3.

Benkiser - a Houston attorney who's been the state party's leader for more than two years - announced Tuesday that she has the support of 77 current and former State Republican Executive Committee members in her bid for a second full two-year term. Benkiser edged Parker by nine votes to win the job initially in an emergency SREC meeting in late 2003 - and she won a vigorously-contested rematch to claim her first full term in a vote of delegates to the state convention eight months later. Parker, a former state party treasurer and general counsel, has spent much of the past two years traveling the state and shoring up her base of support without revealing at this point whether she will challenge Benkiser for the third time in less than three years. Republican insiders predict that Parker will run.

At this point in the increasingly rancorous debate, it's difficult to separate facts from a whirlwind of spin that's coming from various angles. The allegations and claims that competing factions are making are difficult if not impossible to shoot down or to substantiate because the RPT hasn't filed a campaign finance report in over two months. Some party leaders and activists who've weighed in on the debate in a flurry of emails are portraying Crain and the media as purveyors of misinformation about the state of the state party's finances. State GOP Vice-Chairman David Barton has reportedly referred to recent stories in the Dallas Morning News and statements in emails circulated by Crain as "completely unmitigated financial fabrications." The Dallas newspaper suggested in one story that the state GOP had been operating in red ink before reporting in another article that the RPT might have violated the terms of a promise to a Travis County prosecutor when it didn't file a campaign finance with the state detailing its involvement in a special state House election in Austin. But some GOP leaders and activists insist that reports on party finances have been overblown.

"The truth is that the Texas Ethics Commission has confirmed that the RPT is in total compliance," Texas Eagle Forum President Cathie Adams, a Benkiser ally, told supporters in an email this week. "And auditors have confirmed that the RPT finances are completely in order and in the black."

SREC member Kathy Haigler of Deer Park voiced the same sentiment in an email this week defending Benkiser and outlining achievements at the state party under her leadership. Haigler insisted that the RPT was healthy financially and that reports of fiscal problems were "hogwash."

The RPT's defenders and critics, however, are for the time being hamstrung in any hopes they have of proving their points without data they would need to get from disclosure reports that have yet to be filed with the state. An analysis of state GOP finances is complicated further by the fact that the party must keep two sets of books - one for state activity and a second on the more restricted flow of money in and out of a federal committee.

The last state report filed by the state showed the RPT with almost $63,000 in cash on hand at the end of 2005. Two years ago the state party submitted reports to the Texas Ethics Commission eight days and 30 days before the March 2004 primary and another detailing money put into a special state Senate election at the start of the year. But party officials determined that RPT was not obligated to file pre-primary reports with the state this year even though it had reportedly helped Ben Bentzin in a special election that he lost to Democrat Donna Howard in a February runoff vote for an open Austin state House seat. RPT officials say their involvement in the race was noted on Bentzin's reports to the state.

Several Republican state House incumbents who came under attack in primary re-election bids from James Leininger believe that the San Antonio physician and investor financed polling by the state party in their districts in the process of recruiting GOP primary challengers. While the RPT reported a $65,000 contribution from Leininger in November, there are no obvious expenditures listed for polling in the moderate members' districts on the final report it sent to the state last year. Republican insiders speculate that possible transactions that would tie the state party to the campaign that Leininger funded in an attempt to unseat five moderate House members may show up on a campaign finance report that will be due to the state this summer. Some of the House Republicans who were challenged by Leininger recruits said state party officials told them they would only share information gleaned from the polling if they had Democratic opponents this fall.

In choosing to wait until this summer to file a state disclosure report, the state party is gambling that it won't be violating the agreement that it reached last year with the Travis County Attorney Ken Escamilla on its campaign finance practices. The deal reached with the local prosecutor stemmed from its use of corporate funds. Escamilla is reportedly taking a look into questions raised in recent news reports to see if the party is complying with the terms of the agreement.

Despite assurances from Benkiser supporters, some Republican activists such as former state chairman Tom Pauken and SREC member Chris Davis have raised concerns in communications to grassroots activists about the RPT's federal account and the debt it reported on a statement to the Federal Election Commission last month. That report showed the federal account with debt of almost $485,000 and less than one-tenth that much in cash on hand. But RPT defenders such as Haigler have indicated that the federal debt figure does not reflect borrowed funds in the traditional sense. Without the benefit of documentation that's not currently available on public records, Haigler said the state party's in the black - and she quoted Barton as saying that fundraising had never been better during his nine years as vice chair than it has in the past year.

Pauken, an outspoken lawyer who's clashed off and on with other party leaders and activists since leaving the chair's post 10 years ago, takes the opposite view when offering his own assessment of the state party today.

"One thing is obvious. The vaunted conservative, grassroots organization built up during the Goldwater/Reagan eras and sustained throughout the 1990s ... is gone," Pauken said in a weekend email. "Former allies within the Republican Party of Texas are fighting among themselves just like our elected state officials can't seem to get along with one another.

"The best thing that Texas Republicans have going for them these days is the woeful state of the Texas Democratic Party, but that may not be enough for them come November if they don't get their act together soon," Pauken warned.

Caught in the crossfire are grassroots supporters who are essentially having to decide who they choose to believe with minimal evidence to support the conflicting views.