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Speakergate: who's going to get indicted in the grand jury investigation of Tom Craddick, Tom DeLay, and corporate contributors to Republican campaigns in Texas? That's the $190,000 question.

Article Excerpt
Who can blame Texas Republicans for succumbing to giddy euphoria in the weeks after the November 2002 election? The victories of 88 House candidates cinched a long-sought GOP majority, guaranteeing the election of a Republican Speaker, easy passage of pro-business legislation, and a new congressional redistricting map friendly to the party. No wonder, then, that political operatives were eager to take credit for the historic victory, as Texas Association of Business (TAB) president Bill Hammond did when he bragged that $1.9 million in corporate money raised and spent by his organization "blew the doors off" the election. [paragraph] Hammond's boast, posted on TAB's Web site and in its newsletter; caught the eye of one of the few remaining Democrats in Texas with any clout: Travis County district attorney Ronnie Earle, the elected official whose office is responsible for prosecuting misconduct by state officials. No one needed to point out to Earle that using corporate money to elect state officials has been illegal in Texas for nearly a century. A 27-year veteran of his office, he successfully prosecuted former Speaker Gib Lewis and former state treasurer Warren G. Harding (both Democrats), but he lost his two biggest eases: against former Democratic attorney general Jim Mattox, in 1985, and in a 1994 trial that east a shadow over his career, against newly elected Republican U.S. senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, when he gave up after a key judicial ruling went against him. The biggest guessing game in Texas politics today is whether Speakergate, Earle's high-profile grand jury investigation into alleged Republican campaign-finance-law violations, has any legs. Will it grow into the biggest stain on the Capitol since the Sharpstown scandal of the early seventies, or is it, as the Republicans contend, a partisan witch hunt (even though in this case,...

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