Some allowed under Senate rules; others may be illegal

R.G. RATCLIFFE | The Houston Chronicle

AUSTIN —U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison this spring piggybacked onto her official Senate travel seven political events that raised more than $310,000 for her race for the Republican nomination for governor.

In four of the five trips involved, federal taxpayers and Hutchison’s campaign split the cost almost evenly, as required by Senate rules, and the campaign paid the brunt of the cost for one trip. But the division raises the specter that taxpayers are subsidizing Hutchison’s campaign.

Piggybacking political trips on official business is permissable under the Senate rules, but could be a violation of state election law depending on when the campaign event was scheduled and whether the official business was created to justify a fundraiser.

“Any time you have a political event intermingled with official events, there is going to be a gray area,” said Dave Levinthal, spokesman for the Center for Responsive Politics. “The mere perception that taxpayer money could be used to fund or subsidize a campaign is not a good thing.”

The cost to taxpayers for four of the trips was $10,921, while the campaign picked up $10,534. The balance tipped dramatically in the taxpayers’ favor just once: On the fifth trip, her campaign chartered an airplane to fly her to Laredo while taxpayers paid $212 for her to fly a commercial airline from South Texas back to her home in Dallas.

A saving for taxpayers?

Hutchison spokeswoman Jennifer Baker said the travel always was planned around official activities, and the fundraisers were tacked on as something that could be done at the end of a busy day. Baker said no laws were violated in how the travel was divided.

“It typically ends up saving the taxpayers money,” Baker said because the campaign picked up half the expenses.

Hutchison’s campaign this year accused Gov. Rick Perry, her opponent in the March Republican primary, of misusing taxpayer dollars when he held ceremonial bill signings around the state at taxpayers’ expense.

Senate rules allow lawmakers to do official and political travel on the same trip as long as the costs are prorated.

Texas campaign finance expert Randall “Buck” Wood said piggybacking campaign events on official travel could be a violation of state election law as a donation if it can be shown that the campaign event was scheduled first or that the official event was set up to justify a fundraiser.

“It’s a real temptation for someone trying to be tight on the purse strings,” Wood said. “Any time I see a political candidate using public funds to make a trip and there’s a fundraiser involved, I get suspicious.”

Fundraising e-mails and invitations show some of the fundraisers were set up a month prior to Hutchison’s visit.

One example occurred on April 15, when Hutchison flew from Dallas to Houston. She held a “tax day” news conference to say Congress “may need a reminder of just who is underwriting the government’s spending spree: American taxpayers.” That evening, Hutchison held a governor’s race fundraiser in Houston that raised $109,000.

Taxpayers paid Hutchison’s way to Houston by commercial airliner, while the campaign paid her way home, about $135 each way.

Levinthal noted the tax day event could have been held almost anywhere: “Absent the fundraiser in Houston, would she have had the tax day event in Houston?”

Hutchison was indicted by a Travis County grand jury in 1993 on charges of political misuse of her state treasury staff and acquitted when then-District Attorney Ronnie Earle refused to prosecute at trial. The case focused on state employees setting up fundraisers for her to coincide with official state business so taxpayers covered the travel cost.

Baker said all of Hutchison’s travel expenses have been legal under Senate rules.

During her 16 years in the Senate, Hutchison has charged taxpayers more than $800,000 for official travel. Most has been flying to or from her home in Dallas or chartering aircraft to reach remote parts of Texas or to tour the coast after Hurricane Ike.

Without a major threat to her re-election in 2000 or 2006, there were few occasions when politics and official business mixed in Hutchison’s schedule. But that changed in January as she gathered 300 supporters in Austin and told them she was running for governor.

r.g.ratcliffe@chron.com

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