A state district judge ruled Thursday that a political committee founded by U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay broke the law by not reporting more than $500,000 in campaign contributions.

“I find that the contributions were used in connection with a campaign for elective office. Therefore, they were political contributions or campaign contributions within the meaning of ... the Election Code,” visiting State District Judge Joe Hart said in his ruling.

The lawsuit was brought by Democratic candidates. Hart said the money, much of it corporate contributions, should have been reported to the Texas Ethics Commission because the money was raised to influence Texas elections.
Bill Ceverha, treasurer of Texans for a Republican Majority, was ordered by the judge to pay nearly $200,000 in damages. The money would be divided among the five Democrats who brought the lawsuit against Ceverha and who lost state legislative races in 2002.

The 2002 legislative elections were significant because Republicans won control of the Texas House for the first time since Reconstruction. The GOP later used its majority to redraw Texas’ congressional districts and send more Republicans to the national legislatures.

This is a civil case separated from the criminal investigation that is currently being conducted by the district attorney in Austin into whether the PAC funneled illegal corporate contributions to GOP candidates for the state Legislature. Three of DeLay’s top fund-raisers and eight corporations were indicted last year. Ceverha has not been charged.

Although DeLay has not been criminally charged and had congressional immunity that protected him from the obligation to testify in the lawsuit, he still has already faced many allegations of unethical conduct on Capitol Hill, and the House Republicans had to back down from a change on the ethics rules on the chamber that was perceived as a means to protect DeLay if he is finally indicted.