Members of the public have asked me whether as Texas Attorney General I will apply a "three strikes and you're out" policy to corporations such as is applied to human beings, meaning whether I'll take action to revoke a corporation's charter if it receives three criminal convictions.
Article 4, Section 22 of the Texas Constitution lays upon the Texas Attorney General the duty to monitor the activities of private corporations and to pursue judicial forfeiture of their charters upon sufficient cause. This is talking about civil action, not criminal prosecution. The burden of proof the Attorney General has to meet in civil actions is less than the burden of proof in criminal prosecutions - proof beyond a reasonable doubt is not required. Thus the Constitution does not require conviction of crimes for the Attorney General to pursue charter revocation; rather, the legal requirement is "sufficient cause."
Government belongs to the people and the Attorney General is the people's lawyer. Thus any corporation's convictions of multiple criminal offenses would clearly be sufficient cause for me as Attorney General to undertake charter revocation action. After all, the United States Supreme Court declared 120 years ago that corporations are persons under the 14th Amendment. Thus the receipt of multiple criminal convictions should entitle the people to treat corporations the same way the people treat human beings who receive multiple criminal convictions.
More importantly, when I'm Attorney General my duty to the people under the Texas Constitution will not allow me to set an arbitrary minimum threshold of misconduct, such as three criminal convictions, to trigger charter revocation action. Although the corporate government that runs the show today doesn't realize it, corporations are holders of public trust. They operate under charters issued by the State granting them the privilege of corporate existence. Even one violation of the public trust - which need not necessarily be a criminal offense - may lead me to find sufficient cause to seek charter revocation under the Constitution if the corporation's conduct represents a continuing danger to the public trust.
David Van Os
Democratic Candidate
For Texas Attorney General 2006
www.vanosfortexasag.com