One might think that the Texas Ethics Commission and the Texas Attorney General’s Office Ken Paxton would act as if they were on the same team. The ethics committee is responsible for administering statewide election law. The Attorney General is supposed to seek legal remedies when these laws are violated.
But when it comes to holding political candidates accountable for not submitting campaign funding reports, we wonder if the attorney general’s office drops the ball too often. Unfortunately, it is the public that can be the biggest loser of all.
The case of Dallas attorney Marilynn Mayse, who the ethics committee says owes more than $ 42,000 in delinquency filing fees, highlights our concern. Mayse won the Democratic primary in Dallas County No. 1 Criminal Court in March. As he has no Republican opponent in the November general election, he will take the seat in January and begin presiding over criminal cases of misconduct.
Mayse had been trying to be a judge for years, running for office in the 2016, 2020 and 2022 elections. Commission records show that Mayse accumulated fines for failing to report for his 2016 and 2020 races. they are important, of course, because they reveal the source and amount of financial contributions to the candidates. We believe that they are especially important for judicial candidates because contributions may reveal conflicts of interest that may call into question their impartiality. In addition, compliance with this basic electoral requirement shows respect for the law, a quality that we believe is important in a judge.
Mayse’s 2022 submissions show he had no collaborators and spent about $ 5,400 of his own money to overthrow incumbent Judge Dan Patterson. His reports show that he spent about four times as much on political contributions. The highly respected Patterson had 90% overall approval in the latest Dallas Bar Association Judicial Assessment Survey. However, Mayse won a decisive 53% of the vote and Patterson will be fired in January.
This is despite his previous six years of violating the electoral law, which unfortunately does not prevent candidates from running again. Unfortunately, Mayse did not return calls for comment.
Appropriately, the commission referred its criminal cases in 2016 and again in 2020 to the Attorney General’s office after exhausting its limited enforcement capabilities. The attorney general sued Mayse for the 2016 fines and won a $ 22,000 default sentence five years ago, but it’s unclear whether Mayse has paid a penny for the sentence. The commission says it has not received any news that it has done so, so it has kept its 2016 infractions on the list of delinquent declarants. As for the additional $ 20,000 he owes for violations in 2020, the commission records obtained by us show that the Attorney General’s case has remained open since June 2020. The Attorney General did not respond to repeated calls and emails. asking for feedback.
Surprisingly, the Attorney General’s Office has gone to court. Commission records show that he rarely does so in arrears despite his duty to comply with state law. Weekly reports of the Attorney General’s activity in collecting fines almost never show that the office is filing complaints against these abusers.
This is worrying in light of Paxton’s apparent lack of support for the Ethics Commission in general. As previously reported in this document, his office has for years refused to represent the commission in the lawsuits and appeals filed by the anti-government group called Empower Texans, which has tried to strip it of its skills. The group’s political action committee has been a major donor to Paxton’s campaigns over the years. Because Paxton has refused to defend the commission against the group’s attacks, the ethics commission has had to ask the Texas Legislature for more than $ 600,000 to cover the costs of retaining an outside lawyer. Lawsuits continue to appeal in El Paso and Austin.
For its part, the commission is careful not to criticize the prosecution. Commission President Mary Kennedy said in a written statement that she acknowledged that the Attorney General has “many very important issues and important controversies to address.” But collecting unpaid ethical penalties should be a priority, he told us. “That is why, in the past, we have suggested that the legislature consider additional consequences for non-compliance or give the Ethics Commission the independent authority to carry out the collection of its sanctions,” he said.
We agree that the issue of unpaid fines for campaign finance violations is a major issue that undermines public confidence in the electoral process. It seems that a candidate can simply skip the required reporting, ignore the ethics committee’s warning letters, and accumulate sometimes massive fines, but have little concern about being sued by the attorney general.
In fact, these candidates can only return to the polls and land in major offices. This is a problem that needs to be addressed.
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