Unfortunately, we all know who Phyllis Schlafly is, and that her right-wing Eagle Forum meddles in the Texas public school curriculum. Here's what Schafly has to say about her progress in "Kicking out the liberal bias" in our textbooks.  Of course, she fails to mention that Thomas Jefferson has been de-emphasized and Senator Ted Kennedy dumped, to make room for Schlafly to be added. (yahoo news, NYT, Texas Freedom Network)

The highest rating The Eagle Forum gave a Texas Democratic Representative or Senator was 24 out of 100, while Republicans received 100's and other high rankings, and no Republican was rated lower than the highest rated Democrat.

Well, David Kelton made donations to The Eagle Forum and received money from The Eagle Forum in 2005 and 2006. Cozy deal.

Remember Tom DeLay's fall from grace and resignation as the U. S. House of Representatives Republican majority leader and his house seat due to the TRMPAC / ARMPAC money laundering scheme to skirt Federal and State campaign finance rules? Well, guess who gave money to TRMPAC's attorney, Ed Shack? That's right, David Kelton.

Then, there's the Republican Liberty PAC. They're out to reform the Republican Party because it isn't libertarian enough. They state that, "After decades of New Deal and Great Society social activism; combined with the rapid decline in civics and American history education in our government-run public schools; mixed with a growing population of ill-informed and apathetic voters; government at every level in this country continues to be too big, too intrusive and too expensive"

Their solutions include, elimination of all government health programs, repeal of all capital gains, inheritance taxes, and all corporate and business taxes; eliminating all compulsory government retirement and disability programs; and closing the Departments of Education, Commerce and Agriculture, Health and Human Services, and Housing and Urban Development.

The Republican Liberty PAC contributed money to Kelton.

Who is this Ed Shack?

Well, he was Tom Craddick's attorney during his race for Speaker in 2003 (he received 8 payments from the official "Speaker's Fund".) Read a letter he wrote to the Austin Chronicle about the Speaker's Fund here. Some questioned if the expenditures from that fund were legal.

He was a TRMPAC attorney, approving all of the donations and expenditures of the Texas Association of Business (TAB). In that TRMPAC link, Bill Cerveha, TRMPAC Treasurer notes, "we had legal advice from day one to be sure we did everything clean so there'd be no question about it." Well there were questions. There is a continuing investigation into TRMPAC by Travis County District Attorney, Ronnie Earle. The TAB was indicted by a grand jury for raising money for political campaigns, paying staffers to do political work and for illegally sending mailers to Republican candidates, among other things. They hid their involvement in the 2002 election by having TRMPAC distribute the mailers.

He was the attorney for Leininger's PAC that targeted incumbent Republicans who were not pro-voucher during their 2006 primaries.

He was Henry Cuellar's attorney during the recount in the run-off against U.S. House incumbent Ciro Rodriguez in the 2004 primary (Cuellar won by 58 votes, but it took an appeal to the 4th Circuit Court to accomplish that.)

Governor Rick Perry hired him to the tune of nearly $20,000 in 2005. I wonder what for?

Other officeholders who have hired him include Representatives Craig Estes, Mike Krusee and Terry Keel.

And, Shack has testified in front of the Texas Ethics Commission on various matters, including a TEC proposal to clarify how candidates and officeholders report reimbursements to staff.

The kicker is that in 1991, he served as staff to the Governor's Task Force on Ethics charged with creating the rules and procedures of the newly created Texas Ethics Commission - which has been described as toothless and gumless.

WHY does John Davis need such a high powered, politically connected attorney? Perhaps it is because four ethics complaints were filed against him. These complaints, all accepted by the TEC, were for numerous violations including improperly reporting over $41K in expenses as simply "American Express", improperly reporting reimbursements to himself from his campaign cash, reporting expenses in the wrong reporting period and personal use of campaign funds (over $22K). Ch. 11, Houston, did a story on Davis which you can view through a link here.