Paul Kiel November 28, 2006, 1:11 PM

And the medal for most imaginative ethics ruling goes to… Texas! From The Houston Chronicle:

A Texas official who receives any sum of cash as a gift can satisfy state disclosure laws by reporting the money simply as “currency,” without specifying the amount, the Texas Ethics Commission reiterated Monday.

The 5-3 decision outraged watchdog groups and some officials who unabashedly accused the commission of failing to enforce state campaign finance laws.

“What the Ethics Commission has done is legalize bribery in the state of Texas. We call on the commission to resign en masse,” said Tom “Smitty” Smith, who heads Texas Citizen, an Austin-based group that advocates for campaign finance reform.

Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle, a Democrat, said the “currency” interpretation would render it “perfectly legal to report the gift of ‘a wheelbarrow’ without reporting that the wheelbarrow was filled with cash.”

Presumably that trick would also work with a bathtub, a pinata, or any other vessel that you’d care to give your lawmaker or state official.

Earlier this year, the commission ruled that a gift of a check, no matter the amount, could simply be disclosed as “checks.”

The ruling stems from a case last year, when Houston millionaire and GOP attack group funder Bob Perry gave Bill Ceverha, a member of the State Employees Retirement System board, a $50,000 check, which was disclosed only as “check.” According to the Chronicle, “[b]oth men have said the check for $50,000 was supposed to help cover legal fees Ceverha incurred defending himself against a civil lawsuit related to his role as treasurer of former Majority Leader Tom DeLay’s Texas fundraising operation.”

Tom DeLay