11:10 PM CDT on Monday, August 16, 2010

AUSTIN – State Rep. Joe Driver of Garland, who rails against the evils of runaway government spending, admitted Monday that he has pocketed thousands of dollars in taxpayer money for travel expenses that his campaign had already funded.

The veteran Republican legislator, faced with findings from an investigation by The Associated Press, acknowledged in an interview that for years he has been submitting the same receipts – for luxury hotels, airline tickets, meals, fees and incidentals – to both his campaign and to the Texas House. He has also been collecting thousands of dollars in state mileage reimbursements for travel in vehicles for which his campaign has shelled out more than $100,000 since 2000.

JOE DRIVER The AP's review of hundreds of pages of state and campaign travel records found that Driver double-billed for at least $17,431.55 in travel expenses, much of it at upscale out-of-state hotels, since 2005. The number could go higher, but House travel records before mid-2005 have already been destroyed. Driver has been in office for 18 years. The double-billing figure does not include the vehicle expenses.

A conservative on the powerful House Appropriations Committee, which oversees how state dollars are spent, Driver said he thought it was OK to bill two entities for the same expenses. He said he routinely pays hotels and airlines with donated political funds and then submits the same expenses to the state, taking the taxpayer money for himself.

"Now you're scaring the heck out of me," Driver told the AP, adding: "It pretty well screws my week."

He vowed to pay back the state for any dollars that he was not entitled to receive.

Two ethics watchdogs say that lawmakers who submit the same expenses to two different entities could run afoul of both civil and criminal law. Fred Lewis, an independent political watchdog who has been urging ethics reform in Texas, said Driver is probably not the only legislator collecting taxpayer money for travel that their donors actually pay for.

"It's essentially double-dipping," Lewis said. "This is a very serious problem. ... It's wrong, because you can't ask the state to reimburse you for something for which you have not incurred an expense."

Chad Dunn, general counsel for the Texas Democratic Party, said he would ask the Travis County district attorney's Public Integrity Unit to open a formal investigation.

Driver insists he thought the double-billing was perfectly appropriate – until talking about it with the AP.

"Well, it doesn't sound like it is now. If you bring it up that way," he said.

Driver, former chairman of the House Law Enforcement committee, said that state ethics authorities approved the arrangement years ago, but he couldn't remember who told him that or when it was. He said he was told to just keep the state money and not reimburse his campaign for the expenditure.

The Ethics Commission says it doesn't provide such advice because campaign money can't be legally converted to personal use.

Ethics Commission deputy general counsel Tim Sorrells said any state reimbursements for campaign travel would have to "go back to the campaign, not for your personal use."

Over the years, Driver has double-billed for numerous Southwest Airlines tickets to Austin from Dallas "to attend to legislative duties," records show. But his biggest reimbursements came during legislative conferences held out of state.

In August 2006, Driver's campaign paid $1,122.06 for him to stay at the Hotel Palomar in San Francisco to attend the annual meeting of the American Legislative Exchange Council. Reports show the campaign also paid $450 in registration fees and $849.19 for a United Airlines flight.

All of the receipts for those expenses were then submitted to the state for reimbursements. The state wouldn't pay $10.80 for the movie Driver watched, but it picked up the balance for the Hotel Palomar, paid him for the registration fees and $800 for the United Airline tickets – the maximum amount the state would pay for the flights. For that trip, at least $2,361.26 was double-billed, records show.

There were several other reimbursements that netted Driver more than $1,000 in taxpayer payments, including more than $1,200 for a trip to Memphis, Tenn., in the final days of the 2009 legislative session. On that trip, House journals show Driver as present and voting in Austin on April 30 at least two dozen times – even though the travel records indicate he was traveling to Memphis during the proceedings.

The next day, on May 1, 2009, Rep. Tryon Lewis, R-Odessa, made a motion to have Driver excused to tend to "important business in the district." Driver didn't check out of the Memphis Marriott until May 3.

Driver, who faces Democrat Jamie Dorris in November, has made fiscal conservatism a hallmark of his re-election strategy. On his campaign website, Driver says in 2010 "taxpayers are in revolt against the big spending habits of liberals in government."

First elected to the House in 1992, he didn't have "a clue" when he first began claiming reimbursements for travel paid for by his campaign, he said.

"If I knew it was wrong, I wouldn't have done it that way," Driver said. "I wouldn't have done it just to make money."
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AT A GLANCE: REP. JOE DRIVER
Legislative career: First elected in 1992. Former chairman of House Law Enforcement Committee. Faces Democrat Jamie Dorris in November.

Occupation: Insurance sales and service

Academic: Bachelor's degree, North Texas State University (now the University of North Texas), 1971

Personal: Age 62; lives with wife, Deanne, in Garland; two grown children