Documents Show Keel Was Crafting Way For Craddick To Retain Power Before He Was Parliamentarian
By Vince Leibowitz on Aug 20, 2007 in 80th Legislature ![[Post to Twitter]](/wp-content/plugins/tweet-this/icons/tt-twitter.png){kind=icon}
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[A Capitol Annex Exclusive, © 2007, Vince Leibowitz / CapitolAnnex.com. Ed. Note: Over the coming days, Capitol Annex will review other documents we received related to this story and write on those as well. For this story, we covered the most important documents we received. A .pdf of the documents is at the end of this post. You will need to right click on one of the document's pages after the .pdf is open and use the "rotate" option. We are working on getting a properly rotated copy online now. If you like this work, please tip your blogger.]
Documents obtained by CapitolAnnex.com under the Texas Public Information Act reveal several new twists in the ongoing saga surrounding the resignations of former House Parliamentarian and Deputy Parliamentarian Denise Davis and Chris Griesel.
Among the documents is a memorandum written by new House Parliamentarian Terry Keel, a former Republican legislator, three days before his appointment as interim parliamentarian (and before Davis’ resignation) which set forth the claims Craddick continues to use to justify his refusal to allow members to raise a motion to vacate the chair.
In addition, the documents also reveal that both Davis and Griesel have taken serious issue with House Speaker Tom Craddick’s characterization of their employment as being governed by the tenets of attorney-client privilege. Though both are themselves attorneys, documents released to Capitol Annex show that now are both represented by Austin attorney Charles Herring, Jr., and that Herring sent Speaker Craddick a letter challenging the claims he made upon their departure from their positions.
Davis and Griesel both resigned on May 25—in the waning days of the 80th Legislature—after House Speaker Tom Craddick (R-Midland) refused to recognize House members for a motion to vacate the chair which would have ultimately led to Craddick’s replacement as Speaker.
Following the pair’s resignations, Steve Adrian, Executive Director of the Texas House of Representatives’ House Business Office sent both Davis and Griesel letters dated My 29 informing them:
“Today will be your last working day with the House of Representatives, but you will be allowed to remain ont he payroll for 160 hours of compensatory leave. You will also be paid a lump-sum for your accumulated vacation leave.”
In their letters of resignation, Davis and Griesel requested that May 25 be their last “effective day” and indicated they would “transfer to any other division or perform any other legal duties” for the House in order to complete their accrued service.
On the same day the pair were sent the letter from Adrian, they were also sent the infamous “keep your mouth shut” letter from Craddick himself, which Capitol Annex first revealed on July 26.
In a letter to Capitol Annex, Speaker Craddick’s General Counsel Royce Pabst Poinsett, said that the previously released document was an “initial draft:”
You will note that the documents include various versions od letters dated May 29, 2007 and addressed to Denise Davis and Chris Griesel from Speaker Craddick. Upon a recent review of documents, we noticed that the letters that had been previously released to the public were the initial drafts, not the final versions of the letters that were ultimately sent out to the recipients.
Poinsett also said that Davis and Griesel “had been presented with the initial drafts in person, they made handwritten edits to the language, and their edits were then adopted by the Speaker’s Office into final versions that were sent to them by U.S. certified mail.”
Capitol Annex has obtained a copy of the handwritten notes made by Davis and Griesel on the initial draft. In particular, Davis and Griesel sought to have language changed that mentioned their “resignation from the Speaker’s Office” to “as the House (Deputy) Parliamentarian and Special Counsel to the House.”
Also, the pair sought to have changed Craddick’s use of the words, “As your former clients,” to “as one of your former clients.” Both changes were made in the final draft sent to the pair by certified mail.
And, though the pair did not take issue with Craddick’s strongly-worded language asserting attorney-client privilege when working on revised drafts of what could be called their final termination letters, they did subsequently take issue with the language in a big way.
In identical letters dated June 15, 2007, Charles Herring, Jr., representing Davis and Griesel in separate letters, wrote to Craddick:
I write this letter to simply correct certain misstatements in your May 29th letter.
[...]
In your letter you refer to yourself as one of Ms. Davis’ “former clients and you also refer to her “representation” of you. In fact, Ms. Davis served int he position of House Parliamentarian and Special Counsel to the House of Representatives. She was an employee of, and paid by, the Legislative Council. Thus, her clients were the Texas House of Representatives and the Legislative Council, rather than you individually. Ms. Davis is a lawyer and must comply with the Texas disciplinary Rules of Professional Conduct.
Herring goes on to cite the Texas Disciplinary Conduct at Rule 1.12(a) which states that “[a] lawyer employed or retained by an organization represents the entity.”
Herring also takes issues with Craddick’s contention that Davis is “ethically obligated to decline to provide advice or services or make statements that are substantially related to…[her] work…” with Craddick:
That statement is both incorrect and overbroad. I suggest you have your lawyer explain to you the meaning and limitations of Texas Disciplinary Rules of Professional Conduct 1.09 and 1.10, copies of which I am enclosing for his or her convenience.
Further, the pair’s attorney issued Craddick a stern warning about distorting their record of service:
…[D]uring her employment Ms. Davis at all times attempted to fulfill her professional obligations to the House and the Legislative Council with integrity and propriety, and she expects that you, your staff,a nd others will state accurately her records of performance and will avoid any disparaging or otherwise improper statements concerning her or her record.
The more than 50 pages of documents released to Capitol Annex also show at what point in the session Davis, Griesel, and Craddick may have appeared to have some issues to work out concerning the likely insurgency and attempts to remove Craddick from the Chair.
An entry from Craddick’s calender shows that Davis, Craddick, and Griesel were supposed to meet with Craddick’s Chief of Staff Nancy Fisher on May 16, 2007. The meeting was ultimately canceled with no explanation provided.
Five days later—and four days before he became a paid House officer—Terry Keel authored a memo detailing what would become the linchpin of Craddick’s defense from a motion to vacate the chair: the claim that Craddick cannot be removed by any motion from the House floor.
In the memo, Keel wrote:
The Speaker of the Texas House of Representatives cannot be removed from office by a “motion to vacate the chair” or any similar motion from the floor. Such a motion is not authorized under the House Rules and it furthermore would be in contravention of the applicable articles of the Texas Constitution.
This has remained the cornerstone of Craddick’s defense to this day, and was heavily cited by him and his allies in briefs to the Texas Attorney General concerning questions on the Speaker’s power posed in the form of an opinion request by Reps. Jim Keffer (R-Eastland) and Byron Cook (R-Corsicana).
In the memo, Keel also states:
“The legislature could, by enactment of law—passed in the House and Senate and not vetoed by the governor—provide for the removal of the Speaker from his position subject to the limitations of the applicable constitutional provisions. The legislature could also amend the Texas Constitution to eliminate applicable provisions or create new ones to provide for the removal of a Speaker, but only upon passage of resolutions by two thirds of the House and Senate and ratification by the voters of this state.
The House, however, cannot bypass that process because a motion to remove a constitutional officeholder is subject to a point of order since it would be in contravention to the Texas Constitution. This woudl be so, even if such a rule were attempted at hte beginning of the session to be enacted as part of the House Rules, because it would be an illegal circumvention of the only methods authorized by the Texas Constitution. It would specifically violate Texas Constitution Article 15, [Sec] 7, which requires the Legislature to provide by law – as opposed to rule – for the removal of an officer of the state.
Whether or not Keel was requested by Craddick to write the memo is unclear, as it was four days prior to his appointment on May 25. Keel, in fact, did not receive his Capitol ID card until May 30–following the conclusion of the Session. The ID Card request for is entirely hand written except for the name of the requestor (which was scratched out) and the date, both of which were typed.
[Documents are HERE. In many instances where duplicate documents were sent to both former parliamentarians, we scanned only one.]
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