SB10 ("Rosemary's Bill") Scheduled for Hearing 3/16/15

[ELB]

SB10, Relating to the investigation and prosecution of offenses against public administration, including ethics offenses, and offenses involving insurance fraud or the imposition of the motor fuels tax, soon to be known as the "Goodtime Rosemary Bill", is scheduled for hearing by the Senate State Affairs Committee on Monday.

Four bills have been filed affecting the Public Integrity Unit, all in the Senate - my search did not bring up any in the House (is there structural reason for this?).

All of them remove it from the Travis County District Attorney's office.

Three of them put it in the State Attorney General's office; one creates a Public Integrity Committee composed of the judges who head the state's judicial districts (this seems...odd) and the Committee appoints a prosecutor to head the PIU.

I am thinking that SB10 is the one to watch, because:
1. It has one of the low bill numbers that the Lt Governor assigns. I assume he gives those low numbers only to bills he likes and wants to see prosper.
2. SB10 was assigned to the State Affairs Committee. Senator Joan Huffman is the author of SB10. Senator Huffman is also the Chair of State Affairs Committee.
3. The other three bills were assigned to the General Investigating & Ethics Committee, and none of the bill authors chair that committee (Chair is my Rep, John Kuempel), and none are on the committee.
4. SB10 has already received a "Bill Analyisis", while the others have not.
5. SB10 is already scheduled for a hearing -- and of course, the bill's author is conducting the hearing!

All four bills provide that prosecution of a public official will occur in that official's county of residence. IIRC two of them provide that the PIU will lead the prosecution, but may ask the DA from the official's county of residence to help. One of them provides that the local county DA gets first crack at prosecuting a referred cased, but may ask the PIU attorneys to do it instead.

Senator Huffman's bill is a bit different yet in that first the PIU will investigate any allegations, and this will involve a Texas Ranger. If the PIU decides to proceed, it will refer the case to the administrative judge who presides over the judicial administrative district where the official resides. Then that administrative judge will give the case to the a county or district attorney who is not from the public official's county of residence. That prosecutor will then decide to pursue the case or terminate it. If pursued, the prosecuting attorney will then prosecute it in the county of residence of the accused official -- in other words, the prosecuting attorney will not be on his home turf, but the accused will.

Interesting.

SB10: http://www.legis.state.tx.us/BillLookup ... &Bill=SB10" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The other bills are here: http://www.legis.state.tx.us/Search/Tex ... =&Exclude=" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[ELB]

The bill mentioned above, SB 10, was voted favorably on third reading in the Senate on 4/10/15 and sent to the House. As far as I can tell, it has not been read for the first time in the House (nor sent to a House committee).


Just today (4/21/15) the House voted favorably on the third reading of HB 1660 and sent it to the Senate. That bill deals with public integrity prosecutions, and would essentially remove the Travis County Attorney's office as the single point of prosecution of alleged public integrity crimes.

Instead, upon an allegation of an offense against public administration, the Texas Rangers would conduct an investigation. If the investigation determines there is probably cause, the TRs would refer the case to the county where the defendant resides or the county where the defendant resided when the defendant was elected to a statewide office subject to a residency requirement in the Texas Constitution. The prosecutor in that county would proceed with the case. The law contains various contingencies for when there are conflicts of interest or other problems with either the Texas Rangers or the prosecutor in the home county.