ustxtxb_obs_2002_02_01_50_00016-00000_000.pdf

FOLLOW THE MONEY When a candidate leaves office, where does all the unspent campaign cash go? If you’re former Attorney General Dan Morales, it moves from your PAC account to your CYA account: Cover Your Ass. When Morales left office three years ago, he spread a few thousand dollars to various Democratic candidates. But the bulk of the money has been spent defending himself from Republican successor John Cornyn’s accusation that Morales tried to cut a friend, Marc Murr, into the legal fees resulting from the $17 billion tobacco settlement, which Morales won while in office. From January of 1999 to June of 2001, Morales paid San Antonio attorney Sam Millsap, Jr. over $200,000 from his campaign account. \(These figures do not include Morales’ latest expenditure From January of 1998 to. JurTe of. NO… WE’RE NOT GOVERNMENT INVESTIGATORS, WE’RE ENRON RETIREES… —. 1999, Morales also paid over $60,000 in consulting fees to Jorge Vega, his longtime friend and former chief lieutenant at the A.G.’s office. In recent court filings, Morales has indicated he will call on Vega to give his side of the story in upcoming court proceedings instigated by Morales “to clear his name:’ Vega would presumably challenge the veracity of a fellow former Morales employee, Harry Potter, who has made damaging statements about Murr’s claim to the fees \(which he According to Karen Lundquist of the Texas Ethics Commission, there are very few restrictions on what campaign money can be used for after a candidate leaves office. In general, the law says that the money cannot be used for “personal use:’ As long as a former officeholder keeps a campaign treasurer on file, he or she can hold onto the money indefinitely. DUDE, WHERE’S MY PAPERS Where the hell are the Bush gubernatorial papers? Capitol observers haven’t seen a heist like this since someone stole all the door hinges during the Capitol renovation. We got the historical hinges back, but who knows when we will get to see the governor’s history: all the personal papers, letters, notes, etc., accumulated during his six years in office. In a surprise move, Bush ordered his papers removed to his dad’s presidential library in College Station. The materials archived there are under federal jurisdiction, exempt from the Texas Open Records Act. Public Citizen and others have demanded access to the papers, which are traditionally housed in state archives or state universities, where they remain open to the public after a governor leaves office. Texas has a good open records act, which requires a response within 10 days of a request for records. Bush Library officials have already said they cannot meet that kind of timetable. Is Bush trying to hide something? With the former governor’s longstanding relationship with Ken Lay and Enron coming under the microscope, the timing is suspicious to say the least. Bush met often with Lay, his friend, advisor, and benefactor, throughout his career; presumably this would have generated some records. Bush has been burned by the Open Records Act before: Details of his secret 1998 meetings with utility CEOs to formulate the state’s grandfathered pollight through careful scrutiny of governor’s office and agency records by environmental groups. It’s up to Republican Attorney General John