GOP Craddick's culture of corruption in the State Capitol

Explosive news stories this week — Monday in the New York Times and the last two days in every major Texas newspaper — have blown the lid off the Craddick Cartel’s culture of corruption in the State Capitol.

The essence of the stories is that Craddick violated state law by handing out checks to Republican lawmakers to leverage support for his own race for Speaker.

At their heart, the stories expose Craddick's intimate links to U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay in a political action committee that raised illegal corporate cash, doled it out to Republican legislative candidates, and used it as leverage to push a right-wing agenda.

What else did Texans get for the money Craddick handed out? Bad public policy, that’s what.

· a middle-class tax hike in the form of college tuition deregulation that has put higher education out of the reach of millions

· a mean-spirited attack on low-income working families that has so far kicked hundreds of thousands of eligible kids off the Children's Health Insurance Program, so far

· a constitutional amendment to limit ordinary Texans' access to the courthouse that was sold as a way to hold down insurance rates — which have soared between 30 percent and 50 percent, so far

· retired teachers' health benefits cut in half while pushing a morbid 'dead peasants' scheme to cash in when they die

· no school-finance solution as two-thirds of Texas public schools move to the brink of bankruptcy.

The list goes on. But the bottom line is clear — power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. -- Yellow Dog Blog