Old law on corporate donations gives DeLay new trouble

HoustonChronicle Travis County prosecutors, using a law first passed in 1907, are investigating whether DeLay's operatives committed a felony by breaking the only major restriction on campaign finance in Texas -- a ban on using corporate or labor union money to influence elections.

The main law Earle is using in his investigation dates back to at least 1907, said Ethics Commission Executive Director Karen Lundquist. She said the law was born in response to political abuses by the "Robber Barrons" in the late 1800s.

Assistant District Attorney Cox said he found some abuses in other political committees but no explicitly illegal conduct or attempts to circumvent the law.

"It looks like a gradual pushing of the envelope until one day [Texans for a Republican Majority] decided to rip it open and go for broke with it," Cox said.