Dec
10
Written by:
William Lutz
12/10/2010 10:01 AM
During our interview with Rep. Larry Taylor (R-Friendswood), most of which is published in this week's issue, he asked for the opportunity to clarify that he is actively following state ethics laws and and state reimbursements for activities initially paid for by his campaign go right back into his campaign. We print his comments below:
LSR: Some bloggers have questioned your state reimbursements. What's happening?
Taylor: There's been some ethics [allegations], where they are trying to say that I'm double dipping or double billing [the state and the campaign], and I am absolutely not doing that. I have a system set up in place where we use a clearing account. My staff gives me a spreadsheet showing me how much is my personal money and how much is the campaign, and we follow through on all that. [State reimbursements for expenses first paid by the campaign], it goes right back into the campaign.
The ethics filing requirements right now do not require you to show reimbursements on that form. So this guy out of California just assumed that any state reimbursement I received that didn't show up on my campaign finance report, that I took it. And that's just not the case.
I'm going to go back and amend all my reports to show those optional state reimbursements, just so it will be wide-open and clear that I'm not taking the money. We are in the process of amending all of our reports to show that optional amounts on there.
My point is I'm not doing it. And I've had reporters in. I've proved it too them. I've showed them how we're doing it. I've showed them bank statements of how we're doing it, verifying the money is in fact coming back into the campaign ... My point is I'm not taking money. It's going back into the campaign.