Repercussions rare for violating campaign ethics laws in Texas due to attorney general’s office

In 1989, Bo Pilgrim, an East Texas chicken plant magnate, strolled the floor of the Texas Senate and dispensed $10,000 checks to nine members in an effort to stop a worker’s compensation bill from passing.

The scandal, dubbed “Chickengate,” was shocking but legal.

But the chicken man’s brazenness — what he called campaign contributions, many Texans saw as bribes — ruffled enough feathers to usher in a rare era of good government reforms.

Lawmakers would soon pass laws prohibiting themselves from accepting donations inside the Capitol and creating the Texas Ethics Commission, an independent body with investigative power, that would enforce the state’s campaign finance laws.

Three decades following its inception, the commission is toothless. Compliance of Texas’ ethics laws is largely voluntary. That’s because the agency relies on the Texas attorney general to enforce payment of fines for violations.

And under Ken Paxton, who himself owes $11,000 in ethics fines, that has rarely happened.

A review by The Texas Tribune found that the number of politicians, lobbyists and political action committees that owe fines for breaking state campaign finance laws has exploded in recent years.

The Texas Ethics Commission issues the penalties for violations of state campaign finance laws, most often when entities fail to file required reports detailing their fundraising, spending or personal financial holdings. Those penalties could also be for infractions like spending campaign dollars on improper expenditures, failing to register as a lobbyist or using government resources to campaign.

Fines are the primary enforcement mechanism to ensure political actors follow the law. But when the fines go unpaid, the responsibility for forcing