Ethics complaint against Watson campaign still unsettled after hearing

Monday, November 18, 2024 by Amy Smith

The question of whether Mayor Kirk Watson's reelection campaign violated the city's campaign finance rules remained unsettled last week following a hearing before the Ethics Review Commission.

The commission recessed shortly after 10 p.m. after deadlocking on one motion to dismiss the complaint and another to extend the meeting past 10 p.m. That left little choice but to recess the hearing until a future date yet to be determined.

With the chair and vice chair both absent, Secretary Nguyen Stanton Adams presided over the hearing with only five other commissioners present. Commissioner Ed Espinoza, appointed by Watson, recused himself from participating.

Complainant Betsy Greenberg, a former member of the ethics commission, had alleged in separate complaints that the campaigns of Watson and mayoral candidate Doug Greco exceeded the $46,000 contribution threshold from donors living outside the postal ZIP codes within Austin city limits.

Greenberg publicly supported mayoral candidate Carmen Llanes Pulido, who placed second after vote tallies were finalized last week, resulting in Watson narrowly avoiding a runoff.

The commission did not address the complaint against Greco, who unsuccessfully sued the city on grounds that the city's contribution limits from donors outside of Austin violated their constitutional rights.

During the Nov. 13 hearing, Greenberg focused much of her argument on Watson's donors who are not registered to vote in Travis County, citing the same section of the city charter under which she filed her complaint. That section states: "No candidate and his or her committee shall accept an aggregate contribution total of more than $30,000.00 per election, and $20,000.00 in the case of a runoff election, from sources other than natural persons eligible to vote in a postal (ZIP) code completely or partially within the Austin city limits."

In her argument, Greenberg said the Watson campaign "only collects self-reported home ZIP codes and has no process to ensure that contributors are eligible to vote in the self-reported ZIP code." She said evidence put forth by Watson's attorney, James Cousar, "only provided information for the contributions listed on the (Greenberg) complaint, even though there are thousands of additional contributors who may not be eligible to vote in a ZIP code within the (allowable) envelope."

She pointed to a handful of donors on Watson's contribution report who she said are not registered to vote in Travis County.

Cousar responded that the case "has taken a very serious turn in an entirely different direction, because the complaint is no longer that the campaign has accepted contributions from people with a ZIP code outside the city of Austin. The complaint is now, as I understand it, that the campaign has accepted contributions from people who are not registered to vote in Austin."

If the commission were to accept that argument, Cousar said, "it would have very serious consequences ... prohibiting people from making contributions who are not registered to vote would sweep out a whole category of people."

Commissioners raised a number of questions of both parties but the responses didn't appear to sway a majority one way or another.

Commissioner Amy Casto offered a motion to dismiss the complaint, but only three members voted in favor: Casto, Brian McGiverin and Mary Kahle. The remaining commissioners – Stanton Adams, Luis Figueroa and William Pumfrey – wanted more time for discussion before making a final decision. But without six votes to continue the meeting past 10 p.m., the commission had no choice but to recess.