During this past election, my State Representative Valinda Bolton (D, incumbent) was running against Donna Keel (R).  I had no doubts that Bolton would hold onto her seat.  However, Keel was chided because she was the sister-in-law to the State House parliamentarian who was nominated by a controversial speaker.  It was a small bit of controversy about the big, bad Republican knowing business people and wanting to help them out instead of the little guys in the district.  Same old DvR politics.

I bring this up because the parliamentarian, Terry Keel, filed an ethics complaint against a Democratic consultant after he used his website to report what Keel called false statements as news.  The consultant, Kelly Fero, was working on the county’s DA race at the time.  He quoted Keel as saying he was too busy trying to get Fero’s boss ousted in the Democratic primary to help his own sister-in-law win her race.

Keel accused Fero of setting up a blog in order to write posts that were then circulated by his boss’s campaign as a news story.   The Texas Ethics Commission rejected the complaint because the posting was anonymous and did not reveal its source.  Keel plans to pursue further legal options against Fero.

This is a little worrisome to me as a blogger.  If Fero really did set this blog up to be a “source” for his campaign, that is very disconcerting.  My blog is editorial, and I make no claims to be a news blog.  However, I can see where a scheme like this could fool those who don’t take the time to research the ads they are being fed.  And even if a faker is exposed by other bloggers probably, chances are few will ever hear about it.  So, chances are the damage is done.

Since the Ethics Commission rejected the complaint, what are the standards they used?  Keel accused Fero of violating truth-in-political-advertising laws, I suppose because the posting was anonymous.  It would make sense to me that if Keel had proof that Fero DID write this post for the express purpose of being used in political advertising, then I would think this would be a clear ethics violation.

I guess bloggers will just have to work harder to convince readers of their honesty and then have some patience while the time passes as they continue to become more and more important means of disseminating information.