Saturday, May 21, 2022

TURD NABBED FOR ILLEGAL LOBBYING OF LEGE MEMBERS

By Patrick Svitek
Texas Tribune
A 2019 law aimed at cracking down on the revolving door of lobbyists at the Texas Capitol is ensnaring two recent legislators and prompting state ethics regulators to address potential loopholes.

The law says former members of the Legislature cannot engage in activities that require them to register as a lobbyist if they have made a political contribution using campaign funds in the past two years. It is meant to prevent a situation where, for example, a lawmaker spreads campaign contributions around to colleagues, steps down or loses reelection — and then goes to lobby those same colleagues a short time later.

The law, House Bill 2677 by state Rep. Craig Goldman, R-Fort Worth, passed without any opposition in both chambers.

But redistricting has created more turnover than usual at the Legislature this year, creating a pool of former lawmakers who may want to join the lobby. Two of them — former state Reps. Eddie Lucio III, D-Brownsville, and Chris Paddie, R-Marshall — registered as lobbyists with the Texas Ethics Commission last week, despite using campaign cash for political contributions in the past two years. But after media inquiries, they decided to suspend their registration.

Paddie nonetheless characterized his registration as a proactive measure and said it was not because he had engaged in activities requiring disclosure — the threshold outlined for the two-year ban under the 2019 law.

“I recently registered with the Ethics Commission with the intent of engaging in lobby activity,” Paddie said in a statement. “However, I have not yet engaged in that activity and have suspended my registration with the Ethics Commission.”

Lucio’s case is a little more unusual. When he shut down his campaign account earlier this year, he sought to retroactively comply with the 2019 law by seeking refunds of all the political contributions that he thought he had made in the last two years. But his lawyer said he recently became aware of other political contributions Lucio made over that period. And he is now unable to rectify the situation because the account has been closed.

“We reviewed Mr. Lucio’s reports and the applicable laws surrounding lobby registration and we believe that he did everything he could to mitigate his situation before registering,” Lucio’s lawyer, Andrew Cates, said in a statement. 

“Subsequently, we were made aware of additional contributions Mr. Lucio made in 2020 that we were unable to mitigate prior to closing his campaign account. Out of an abundance of caution, Mr. Lucio will suspend his lobby registration until the time period runs out in October 2022 and we will reassess his legal options at that point.”

Both Paddie and Lucio announced they were not seeking reelection during the redistricting process last year and then stepped down early months later. 

Paddie, the former chair of the House State Affairs Committee, had registered to lobby for Incode Technologies, an identity verification company based in San Francisco. Lucio had registered to lobby for five clients, including the health insurer Blue Cross Blue Shield and Texans for Lawsuit Reform, the powerful tort reform group.

Their registrations came as the Texas Ethics Commission was crafting an advisory opinion that addressed a potential loophole in the 2019 law. An unnamed state legislator had asked the commission to weigh in on whether the two-year ban applies to not just campaign accounts, but separate political committees where lawmakers sometimes maintain their contributions.

All lawmakers have a “candidate/officeholder account” that is traditionally the main vehicle for their campaign finances. But some choose to raise and spend money out of other committees — often “special-purpose” committees — to allow for more flexibility.


24 comments:

Anonymous said...

Once a RATA always a RATA!

Anonymous said...

These corrupt nepotism Lucio's will weasel out of everything. They think they are above the law and can get immunity for all corruption.

Anonymous said...

The Insider news site reported on Thursday that SpaceX paid a $250,000 severance package to a flight attendant after she claimed he sexually harassed her while she was working. The website, citing documents it says it obtained from a friend of the flight attendant, said the payment was contingent on the accuser not pursuing legal action.

NBC News has not confirmed the veracity of Insider’s information. SpaceX representatives did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Anonymous said...

Mexicans at play.


Anonymous said...

Once again SUCIO LUCIO

Anonymous said...

Throw them in jail period.

Anonymous said...

Why are you down on turds?

perplexing.


Anonymous said...

EDDIE LUCIO'S

You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires. From the beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.
GREEDY BASTARDS MAY YOU BURN IN HELL!

Anonymous said...

Poor Eddie Lucios Turd, his family made him do it!
And, lastly, I want to thank my wife and children for inspiring me to serve my community and giving me the perspective of what raising a family looks like in Texas.

Anonymous said...

Eddie Lucios move out of Brownsville Texas. You are not wanted here.
Eddie Lucios got rich at the expense of the residents of Brownsville Texas.
Eddie Lucios are going down in disgraceful, greedy, hipocrites christians. And they call themselves Catholics. Eddie Lucios are American Catholics Muslim, not Roman Catholic.

All these years Eddie Lucios making money for themselves. And Brownsville, suffering. Because the Eddie Lucios did nothing for the people of Brownsville Texas.
I.R.S. IS COMING FOR YOU 2 CLOWNS. 🤡. MONEY LAUNDERING.

Anonymous said...

THIS IS WHY WE CALL THEM LUCIOS SUCIOS.

Poor Eddies Lucios they are sorry that THEY got caught.
They have more too add to their biography.
All travel expenses paid for buy the RESIDENTS OF BROWNSVILLE TEXAS.
And the city and county leaders are doing the same.
VOTE FOR THE ARENA.

Anonymous said...

Let's not forget Congressman Filemon Vela, he was setting up this corruption plan with the redistricting and setting-up Hidalgo County congressman Vicent Gonzales to being our next Cameron County congressman. Vela also resigned and is planning on becoming a LOBBIST. Same shit.

Anonymous said...

Let it also be known that Filemon Vela and Vicente Gonzalez both have endorsement for Dan Sanchez, the so called ASPERAGAS picker. Sanchez was mentioned in the convicted Judge Abel Limas and Villalobos corruption. This so called of a human cannot even stand on his own two feet. These corrupt so-called lawmakers have SAVED their office holder account monies to choose and pick who THEY want to continue with the corruption setup by these RATAS.

Anonymous said...

This is nothing..just think about it…
This is nothing compared to the shady dealings going on with the greedy things going on in downtown brownsville.
SCAM

Anonymous said...

Juan perfect timing. And you know it. This is from a previous post. On El RRUN RRUN.

Juan - chulo, querido, consentido, y chingon.

Please start a campaign to vote out all city and county officials out of office.

Enough is enough.
The Lucio will not admit. But, your blog EL RRUN RRUN made them quit. You were kind to publish there spending, them siding with the republicans. And more. The Lucio's made it a business for themselves. Thanks to Gamez and Stapleton who gave them a good run and they put their name on the ballot and that was all that was needed for them to give the Lucio a scare. No, too little money was needed for these ladies to get a lot of votes. And these ladies nearly won. Had the Lucio s tried again in this election the Lucio's would have been embarrassed and voted out. So the Lucio s decided to quit.

JUAN YOU CAN MAKE THIS HAPPEN.
CONSENTIDO,
DALE DURO Y NO PARAS.

Anonymous said...

Eddies Lucios SUCIOS life story.
His mom taught him well.

Do not change the subject. Leave Vela out of this.

Anonymous said...

No wonder Lucio' chose not to run again for re-election? When are the arrests coming FBI? Typical democrats, nothing but crooks!

Anonymous said...

Only people who don’t have a conscience become politicos. Bottom line they will have to meet their MAKER one way or another.

Anonymous said...

1:13 pm. Dumbass.
It is called Eddie Lucio's corruption.

Anonymous said...

Oh Eddie Lucio's wife has no problem spending the money, laundering.

Former RGV LEO said...

Well, that explains why this POS Lucio did not run again for his corrupted position? His excuse, that he wanted to spend more time with family? That' for sure, because this Sucio Lucio might be spending time away from his family after his arrest, hoping? But since the FBI is blind when it comes to democrats violating the law? This might not happen? We can't count on Cameron County DA to prosecute the beloved corrupted Lucio family!

Anonymous said...

Juan this eddie munster lucio el TURD sounds like Richard Nixon, I AM NOT A CROOK, yea right little eddie el Turd, we got your number cool arrow. Hope you go to jail puto.

The Truth said...

The IES/Gallegos Federal indictments are still looming for Lucio III. He claimed he worked for them 40 hours a week for IES while being involved with his other jobs and being a State Representative.
Speaking of abuse…FYI, The Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse(CALA) group was founded by Republican operatives and promoted by the first Bush administration. CALA had humble beginnings here in the RGV and was the brainchild of the RGV Partnership in Weslaco, another group dominated by Republicans. It just goes to show how Eddie III will betray his constituents and hitch to any wagon for a dollar!
Interesting reading about a front organization of political operatives hiding in plain site:

https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Citizens_Against_Lawsuit_Abuse

Anonymous said...

IN JAIL THAT'S WHERE THEY BELONG ALONG WITH EL OTRO IDIOTA CHEETOS AND HIS BUDDY EL HILLBILLY COCO WANNA BE WHITE RATA!

rita