Texas Court of Criminal Appeals
Ex Parte Charette
Nos. PD-0522-21 through -0525-21 9/11/24
Issue:
Does the Texas Ethics Commission (TEC) have exclusive jurisdiction to make an initial determination for alleged violations of election and campaign laws in Chapter 571 of the Texas Government Code?
Holding:
Yes. “We conclude that the relevant constitutional and statutory provisions establish that the Legislature intended for the TEC to have exclusive jurisdiction over the offenses listed in Chapter 571. Therefore, exhaustion of administrative remedies in the TEC is a jurisdictional prerequisite to the bringing of criminal charges against a political candidate for campaign-law violations. The defendant in this case was criminally charged for campaign-law violations absent any prior proceedings in the TEC or a referral for criminal prosecution by the TEC. Accordingly, the trial court lacked subject matter jurisdiction over these charges, and it should have dismissed them.” Read opinion.
Dissent (Keller, P.J. joined by Yeary and Keel, JJ.):
“The exclusive-jurisdiction doctrine applies only ‘[w]hen the Legislature grants an administrative body the sole authority to make an initial determination in a dispute.’ The dispute at issue here is whether [the defendant] should be convicted of a criminal offense. The Texas Ethics Commission has no jurisdiction to find someone guilty and impose criminal punishment. …The prosecutor is the one pursuing the remedy, not the criminal defendant. The Texas Ethics Commission did not create (and could not have created) the laws making certain election-related conduct a crime. Because the Election Code offenses are not creations of the Ethics Commission, the Ethics Commission cannot, without express legislative authorization, require the State to first avail itself of an administrative remedy.” Read dissent.
Commentary:
You are hereby on notice to beware of writstorms. The majority of the Court holds that a trial court lacks jurisdiction over a criminal prosecution for an alleged violation of Chapter 571 election and campaign laws unless one of two prerequisites are met: either (1) all administrative remedies by the TEC are exhausted, or (2) the TEC refers the case to the local prosecuting authority for criminal prosecution. Without one of these two, any prior judgment derived from a prosecution of violations of Chapter 571 election and campaign laws will now be subject to collateral attack as void. Perhaps the legislature will visit this issue in its next session and make it clear that neither of those prerequisites are required before a local prosecutor may pursue criminal prosecution of a violation of an election or campaign law (which could run parallel with any TEC investigation and institution of civil penalties). Until then or if not, though, expect litigation stemming from this case.
Further, as a practical note, many candidates for office—including the defendant in this case—are not required to file documents with the TEC during the course of their campaigns (e.g., persons running for a county court or district court judicial bench that does not have multi-county or statewide jurisdiction). This means that without any filings with the TEC, the TEC would not know about any violations of election or campaign laws by these candidates unless local clerical personnel, the local prosecuting authority, a local law enforcement agency, or someone else filed a complaint with or notified the TEC. So, pursuant to the Court’s holding here, prosecutors must be aware that if an election-law-violation allegation is brought to them (by the police, by a citizen, etc.), they must first refer the matter to TEC (in order for TEC to either exhaust all administrative remedies or refer the matter back to them) before they file charges and initiate a criminal prosecution.
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