Stiles hits the state ethics beat
Today's Chronicle has a feature by Matt Stiles on state Sen. Rodney Ellis of Houston. Here's an excerpt:
If he were a baseball player, state Sen. Rodney Ellis would be flirting with the Mendoza Line, the undesirable designation given to batters with averages around .200.
Only three senators had a lower passage rate than Ellis during the last legislative session. The veteran Houston Democrat is known for filing more legislation than any of his colleagues.
This year, the 54-year-old Ellis is juggling at least 183 potential laws, more than anyone else at the Capitol.
But don’t judge him by his passage rate, which stands at about 20 percent for the decade.
“If somebody’s going to criticize me because I do too much, because I’m ambitious, well, I stand accused,” he said with a chuckle during a recent interview.
Hee hee hee! And if someone's going to criticize him for possibly unethical behavior that happens to benefit him and business associates financially? He doesn't have nearly so much to say about that:
Over the years, he’s also faced criticism for mixing public work with private business as an investment banker. Just recently, the online news organization Texas Watchdog reported that Ellis’ company had profited as a minority subcontractor on an $800 million controversial bond package that Ellis publicly endorsed. He denied wrongdoing.
Not even a real quote? Tsk tsk.
Speaking of ethics, we neglected to link to another nice bit of work from Stiles that was posted to Chron.com recently: a nifty searchable database of money spent by lobbyists on elected officials and state employees. Well done, Mr. Stiles!
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 04/06/09 09:30 PM | Print |
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