SEIU Lovell, Part Two

Since I last wrote of possible illegalities with Sue Lovell's campaign for City Council, there's actually been a bit more come to light. And I'm nothing if not sharing.

For starters, the $70,000 in-kind donatation of mail by the SEIU to the Sue Lovell campain seems to have grown. Would you believe, over $120,000 of in-kind donation of mailing expenses by a campaign that had planned absolutely no mail? Well, no campaign pro I've spoken to was aware of a campaign operating with a budget of $0 for mail ... at least with a plan to win. And I don't think SEIU Lovell would go to the lengths she has to hire a campaign manager to work out of San Francisco and a gaggle of campaign pros to work pro-bono for her campaign (which almost all of them do) if she didn't get in it to win it.

Now, for beginners, there are donation limits in city elections. The SEIU maxed out in the first election with a $10,000 PAC check. They have yet to report their expenses, as required by law, with either the state or City of Houston. To date, Sue has claimed they knew nothing about this mailing and that their surprise showing in November was due to their frugal and effective campaign spending. If the political wing of the SEIU and Sue Lovell worked "in concert" with each other, then that would be a serious violation of the law. That San Francisco-based campaign manager is relevant since SEIU has pulled similar big-budget campaigns for a seat at City Hall there. But even more damning is the fact that, not only did Team Lovell know about the mailing, they bragged about it to their supporters!

In politics, you don't get much more of a clearer signal of working in concert than you've gotten here. Lacking a taped conversation or swearing to such actions under oath, this is as clear as it gets. Sue Lovell's campaign knew these mailers went out AFTER the SEIU maxed out their contribution. Alarm bells should have been going off that this meant more was being spent on this race than was allowed by the law. And that's just IF you believe that Team Lovell planned a citywide campaign with no mail ... without knowing that SEIU had planned on doing it for her.

Do we really want a new member of city council that's going to have to sweat out the results of an ethics investigation that's already underway? Do good Democrats in Houston really want to vote in a Democrat who has her own "Tom DeLay" problem that's wide open for all to see?

Just asking. I'll spend the rest of the week making the affirmative case for the other person in the race: Jay Aiyer. Enjoy.