In case you missed this the other day.
State Rep. Joe Driver of Garland, who rails against the evils of runaway government spending, admitted Monday that he has pocketed thousands of dollars in taxpayer money for travel expenses that his campaign had already funded.
The veteran Republican legislator, faced with findings from an investigation by The Associated Press, acknowledged in an interview that for years he has been submitting the same receipts – for luxury hotels, airline tickets, meals, fees and incidentals – to both his campaign and to the Texas House. He has also been collecting thousands of dollars in state mileage reimbursements for travel in vehicles for which his campaign has shelled out more than $100,000 since 2000.
The AP’s review of hundreds of pages of state and campaign travel records found that Driver double-billed for at least $17,431.55 in travel expenses, much of it at upscale out-of-state hotels, since 2005. The number could go higher, but House travel records before mid-2005 have already been destroyed. Driver has been in office for 18 years. The double-billing figure does not include the vehicle expenses.
I am just boggled by this. This is the sort of thing that gets people fired in the real world. If you think real hard, you can probably recall is fairly high-profile recent example of a CEO getting booted for filing bogus expense reports. The two situations aren’t identical, but the principle – Thou Shalt Not Submit Reimbursement Claims For Expenses Thou Did Not (or Should Not) Have Incurred – is the same. This is not rocket science, and Driver’s response to it is just pathetic.
Driver insists he thought the double-billing was perfectly appropriate – until talking about it with the AP.
“Well, it doesn’t sound like it is now. If you bring it up that way,” he said.
[…]
First elected to the House in 1992, he didn’t have “a clue” when he first began claiming reimbursements for travel paid for by his campaign, he said.
“If I knew it was wrong, I wouldn’t have done it that way,” Driver said. “I wouldn’t have done it just to make money.”
I have no idea why he did it, and I have no idea how he could not realize that it was wrong. Interestingly, Driver claims he was told what he was doing was OK by “somebody” at the Texas Ethics Commission, which the TEC denies it ever would have done. I’m inclined to believe them, because again, how could anyone think this was kosher?
For his troubles, Driver has bought himself a criminal investigation and a tougher race. Driver’s district closely mirrored the state in 2008, with McCain defeating Obama 55-44 and Sam Houston getting the high Democratic score with 45.6%. Driver’s opponent is Jamie Dorris, whom I have not met but have heard good things about. I’ll bet a lot more folks will hear about her now.
The Statesman takes an appropriate tone in an editorial about Driver’s behavior. One thing from that story about the DA looking into this needs to be noted:
GOP Rep. Chuck Hopson, chairman of the House General Investigating & Ethics Committee, said he had called [Travis County DA Rosemary] Lehmberg to see whether a criminal investigation is under way while he contemplates his own internal probe of conduct “that doesn’t make the rest of legislators look good.”
Lehmberg said she had spoken to Hopson and said House officials are “probably going to defer to us.”
“We don’t want to run into each other and be gathering documents and looking at documents at the same time,” she said.
You never know what might be found once these rocks start getting turned over. I will be disappointed, but not particularly surprised, if other legislators have made the same error as Driver. One hopes none of them have been anywhere near as egregious about it. BOR and the DMN have more.