Ethics complaints against Austin candidates will not be resolved before election

AUSTIN (KXAN) -- Ethics complaints filed against two Austin City Council hopefuls and two Austin mayoral candidates will not be resolved until after Election Day, the Austin Ethics Review Commission revealed this week.

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

"There was a somewhat last minute postponement...I didn't love that fact but sometimes things are what they are, that's a decision that the chair makes," said Austin Ethics Review Commission Chair Michael Lovins.

The final hearings for both mayoral candidates are expected to happen at the next regularly scheduled Ethics Review Commission meeting on Nov. 13, more than a week after Election Day.

"I think this is the last day it could have fairly happened before the election so I'm not asking to rush it at this point," Greco said. "But I was prepared and I have turned back 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 brought forward later -- and preliminary hearings for those complaints are likely to be heard next month depending on availability of meeting space and the ability of the body to get a quorum.

Complaints against Greco, Watson

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

Filed by former Ethics Review Commission Member Betsy Greenberg, the complaint uses publicly available campaign finance records to show both candidates went over the $46,000 cap set by the city.

An activist group called “Austinites for a little less corruption” in the late 1990s proposed limiting outside donations through a citizen-initiated petition. According to Greenberg, the petition passed with 72% of the vote in 1997.

The challenge though — argued James Cousar, representing Watson in his preliminary hearing — is that the rule does not change how candidates are required to pull donor data, most notably addresses. This makes compliance and tracking compliance, a real challenge.

“There is nothing in Texas law or in 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, so we can comply with the Charter, the campaign has to report a home residential address, we will do that, but that’s not the current requirement.”

That’s where Cousar argued the discrepancy was. While Greenberg said publicly available data points to Watson receiving $52,504.77 (not including addresses such as P.O. boxes and businesses, which would bring that total to $68,104.77), the campaign for Watson provided KXAN documents which appear to show the campaign followed up with donors who used an address outside of city limits and specifically asked for and tracked home addresses.

By that count, the incumbent has only received $45,000 in contributions outside of Austin, complying with the rule, Cousar said and documents show.

Is the rule legal?

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

Greco — the former leader of Central Texas Interfaith — filed the lawsuit saying the rule may be unconstitutional. He told KXAN after the dismissal that the judge did not rule on constitutionality, but rather pointed back to the city process playing out.

“Why should my niece who will be voting for the first time, she’s 18…why is she not able to donate to her uncle, but another candidate’s niece in west Austin can donate to their campaign? That’s not fair,” Greco told reporters when filing that lawsuit.

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

“Mr. Greco has no interest in ignoring or flouting or knowingly or intentionally violating the law. To the contrary, he brought his lawsuit because he thinks it is incredibly important to abide by the law and wants to be able to conduct his campaign while seeking clarification about what the law is from the federal court,” Greco’s attorney Holt Lackey said.