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Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Back issues
Courthouse News Service Courthouse News Service

No Pay Day for Texan Who Challenged Perry

(CN) - Former Texas gubernatorial candidate Chris Bell is not entitled to a $2 million judgment from the Republican Governors Association stemming from his challenge to Gov. Rick Perry in 2006, a state appeals court ruled.

Bell claimed that the RGA failed to name a campaign treasurer and or supply a complete donor list when it made a pair of $500,000 contributions to Perry's successful re-election campaign.

He also asserted that RGA did not comply with the reporting requirement of out-of-state political committees.

The trial court agreed and awarded Bell $2 million, twice the amount of the total RGA contribution to Texans for Rick Perry.

Both sides appealed; Bell because he believed he was entitled to twice the amount due to the alleged violation of two statutes.

RGA argued that it was not required to file the donor list or name a campaign treasurer.

However, the Austin-based Texas Third District Court of Appeals overturned the decision and wiped out Bell's $2 million award in an opinion written by Justice Melissa Goodwin.

"If the legislature had intended for an out-of-state political committee to be subject to the campaign treasurer appointment provisions and the reporting requirements applicable to Texas committees, there was no need to create exceptions in sections 251.005 expressly excluding out-of-state political committees from these provisions," she wrote.

RGA also won its argument regarding the filing requirements with the Texas Election Commission, as Goodwin interpreted the law "to require an out-of-state political committee to file a copy of its report showing its contributions and expenditures with the TEC only when it is required to file such a report with the FEC or other state filing authority in the first instance."

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