Pratt,
Some might say that Senator Seliger has baggage.
SD31’s Kel Seliger
Seliger’s SB346, that Gov. Perry wisely vetoed, might have opened up the flood gates of Soros-style oppositional research against Texas moderates, conservatives and Republicans. And that could have marginalized business people in the same way the CEO for Chic-Fil-A was excoriated by the media for his personally held religious views. And an unjust boycott of Chic-Fil-A, the corporation, resulted. Such tactics by the left, result in less participation of the political process by business people. Unions like an unlevel playing field.
My opinion is that SB346 could have been the ruination of the Republican Party in Texas. Yet, did Seliger reconsider the possible effects of passage of SB 346 after the Gov.’s veto? Did he get a clue? His latest mail-out poll indicates that Seliger still wants to root out “dark money” BUT HIS BILL EXEMPTS UNIONS. For those who follow national politics, unions are the conduit for vast quantities of the hardest of the hard left money in politics that shape our elections.
(b) This subchapter does not apply to a labor organization or any subordinate entity or associated account of a labor organization.
http://www.legis.state.tx.us/tlodocs/83R/billtext/html/SB00346F.htm
The Wall Street Journal, through a period of months, warned repeatedly about a similar federal law. That proposed bill was call the DISCLOSE Act and many serious scenarios were described by that paper if such a law were to pass at the federal level. Because I saw the similarities in SB346 to the WSJ’s description of the DISCLOSE Act, I contacted Seliger’s office about the problems with SB346 to no avail. I even asked that he kill his own bill. Nothing.
I am given to understand that the Citizens United case, that prohibits prior restraint of free speech, is based on the precedent from the ’50’s of a case in which unions were being asked to provide names of donors. In other words, SB346 was most likely federally unconstitutional from the get-go, but would have an immediate effect of drying up conservative and moderate money. Only after much money and years of time, would the damage caused by SB 346 be lessened and only then if the 5-4 make-up of the USSCT remains the same.
James
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