From the Horse’s Mouth

From an article in the El Paso Times, regarding the selection of Ross Fischer of Golber Hilgers, PLLC, to investigate the aborted decision to replace the City’s financial advisor:

[City Attorney Sylvia] Borunda Firth said she recommended Fischer based on his extensive experience with ethics law and previous work with the city.

. . .

“If we can’t trust our own attorney … then our problems go way beyond this,” [El Paso Mayor Oscar] Leeser said. “You have a city attorney that swore an oath to do the right thing and do the right thing for the city.”

Mr. Fischer is an expert on ethics law like Charles Manson is an expert on motivational speaking. I mean, he’s good at it, but he’s on the wrong side. Mr. Fischer has spent his career defending municipalities from ethics lawsuits.

Mr. Fischer worked in the Austin office of Denton, Navarro, Rocha & Bernal, the law firm that represented the City in Stephanie Townsend Allala’s pursuit of City Representatives’ private emails. In that capacity, the law firm worked to defend the City’s questionable ethics practices. Mr. Fischer will know which rocks to avoid looking under.

Empower Texans, a non-profit devoted to fiscal responsibility, had this to say about Mr. Fischer’s appointment to a “joint interim committee that will review state campaign finance (so-called ‘ethics’) laws.”

The most shocking appointment, however, is certainly Austin attorney Ross Fischer. Fischer has served as legal counsel to State Representative Jim Keffer (R-Eastland), and has assisted Keffer in pursuing ethics charges against Empower Texans and Michael Quinn Sullivan. Some of those complaints are still active. Fischer is a former Chairman of the Texas Ethics Commission and works now as a public law attorney representing government entities. He is employed at the Austin firm of Denton, Navarro, Rocha, Bernal, Hyde & Zech, P.C, which bills itself online as “www.RampageLaw.com.”

Fischer has most recently taken taxpayer funds from the Tarrant Regional Water District to research campaign finance violations on the political opponents of the District’s board members. Fischer’s report seems aimed at intimidating opponents to the board’s policies by developing ways to criminalize their dissent and opposition.

As a former Chairman of the TEC, Fischer is directly responsible for the current state of affairs in Texas election law. His practice is built around using the laws to set traps in order to criminalize political dissent. In fact he has worked with Jack Gullahorn, the head of the Professional Advocacy Association of Texas – the lobbyists’ lobbyists – to publish articles and make presentations defending existing lobby regulations, and to speak about how ordinary citizens can be “accidental lobbyists.”

Eastside City Representative Dr. Michael Noe voted against the selection of Mr. Fischer. Westside Representative Peter Svarzbein expressed concern, but ultimately voted for the selection.