Campaign finance change pays off for Hutchison

By Maria Recio

Star-Telegram Washington Bureau


WASHINGTON - Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, is getting a big boost for a run for governor with an election law change that allows her to use $6.7 million in her federal war chest to run for state office.

The change in the campaign finance law of 2002 is in the $388 billion omnibus appropriations bill that Congress is close to approving. It comes after rulings by the Federal Election Commission that forbid federal elected officials from transferring money or using it for costs associated with a state election.

The cash would put Hutchison in the financial front-runner position in a possible three-way 2006 Republican primary, with Gov. Rick Perry with $5 million and Texas Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn with $4 million.

"It puts her halfway there in terms of what she needs to run in the Republican primary," said Austin political observer Harvey Kronberg, editor of the Quorum Report. Hutchison considered such a run in 2002 but abandoned it when she could not raise money from big donors who were committed to Perry.

more: http://www.dfw.com/mld/startelegram/news/state/10302329.htm?1c

I'd love to see the repugs spend their $$$ attacking themselves.

Rick Perry and Carole Keeton Rylander McLellan Strayhorn genuinely hate each other, IMO.

For the longest time I thought the state comptroller was all of these *different* people who were all, for some strange reason, named Carole. Because every time you turned around it was Carole Something Different This Time. Hee! (I think that's now my new name for her.)