Kay Bailey Hutchison, one of Texas Senators, is doing the time-worn tradition of breaking campaign promises a few years down the line.

KBH was twice elected to the Texas House of Representatives.  In 1994, Hutchison won her first six-year term to the United States Senate, against Richard Fisher.  During that campaign, Hutchison vowed she would only serve two terms (reference).

Her bid for Senate in 2006 marks her third campaign.  If KBH wins this campaign, she will enter into her third term in the Senate.  This in direct violation of that campaign promise she made, so many years ago.  Hutchison has been under fire for things outside of breaking promises, before.

In 1993, Hutchison was fighting charges that she had abused her office as a state treasurer. She is quite well known for the following quote:

Would these documents reside anywhere else on any kind of backup? Well, I never authorized the personal or political work to be out there, and I don’t want to be criticized for it being out there. And so I want you to go to those backup tapes and remove it all from the backup tapes.

Despite that quote, and other evidence, Hutchison was acquitted in February of 1994 when the chief prosecutor, Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle, attempted to drop the charges and  starting over later.  He was outwitted by presiding judge John Onion who swore in a jury on the case and immediately ordered them to acquit Hutchison.  Hutchison, along with her press secretary Dave Beckwith (former Dan Quayle spokesperson), and Republican Consultant Karl Rove (her former campaign manager,
and – later/now – top handler to George W. Bush), proclaimed the forced verdict as undeniable proof of Hutchison’s innocence.

Throughout her campaigns, Hutchison has received around $1.2 million in political contributions from the oil industry (since becoming a senator).  During a Congressional debate about oil royalties, an attempt to enter that fact into the Congressional Record was ruled out of order by the Chair (a Republican), who claimed campaign finance was “not germane” in the debate.

As can be plainly seen, Kay Bailey Hutchison has been at the thick of a lot of things in her political career.  It is not really surprising that she is breaking a former campaign promise… Not because she has led a tumultuous career, but because that simply seems to be what is done, these days.  Thus proving the sad state of American politics.

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