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[In the hopes that BOR will permit some news in favor of Nelda Spears on its lead pages, here goes:]
Endorsing Nelda Spears as "a quiet, dignified woman doing a quiet, dignified - and quite competent - job" the Statesman editors call out Glen Maxey for trying to create "manufactured controversy" just to get a steady paycheck.
http://www.statesman.com/blogs...
The editorial lists just a couple of the bald-faced lies Maxey has used to try to explain why he's running against an incumbent Democrat who has created the best tax office in Texas and was Travis County's top Democratic vote-getter in 2004. Thank goodness more and more Democrats are realizing that Maxey is trying to trick them into voting for him even though he has no good reason to be running against Nelda Spears.
In short, it appears that Maxey is running because he wants a steady paycheck. It isn't up to Travis County taxpayers to provide him one, though. Maxey's résumé is not that impressive, nor is there anything on it to lead anyone to believe he would be effective in running an office whose principal job is to collect taxes.
The Statesman failed to mention that Maxey's campaign is now running robocalls with a new lie that Nelda Spears has failed to enforce a law that permits blocking vehicle license plate renewals for people who owe child support. But Maxey knows, or should know, that the only way a tax collector would know which license plates to block is when the tax collector is informed, through TxDOT, of which vehicles belong to people who are behind on child support. TxDOT depends on the Attorney General's office to get that information. The AG hasn't been reporting that information to TxDOT. No tax collector in Texas can stop renewal of license plates without this information. To make it sound like this is Nelda Spears' fault is outrageously deceitful.
Maxey has yet to explain why, if he's been thinking of running for tax collector for many years, he's been so quiet all these years--including during the raging, highly publicized battle that Nelda Spears waged in 2005 and 2006 to prevent privatization of tax collection. (In fact, from May to July last year, Maxey said he was neutral on that issue.) In all these years, not once did Maxey sit down with Nelda Spears and tell her his concerns or ideas or make any public comments about the office...until this campaign. Most likely, the answer is that Maxey's desperately trying to manufacture controversy where none really exists and values political craftiness more than good government.
Maxey's attempt to trick voters on the Eastside to vote him is especially ironic. As the Statesman reported:
Frank Ortega, a member of the State Democratic Executive Committee, says that when Maxey was directing the party's coordinated campaign in 2006, he budgeted no money to turn out East Austin voters. Money was put into the East Austin initiative only after Ortega and others confronted party leaders about the slight.
That is just one reason why real progressives, like Gonzalo Barrientos, Jim Hightower, Sam Biscoe, Sarah Weddington, Labor, the Women's Political Caucus, and lots of others have stood up against Maxey and for Nelda Spears. Here is what Gus Garcia has to say in his recent robocall endorsement of Nelda Spears:
This is Gus Garcia asking you to join me in supporting and voting for Nelda Wells Spears, one of the best public servants in Travis County.
Nelda has served Travis County as our tax collector for several years and has done so with great integrity and honesty. Now she is running for re-election and facing a political consultant who is waging one of the most negative campaigns in recent history.
I hope you will ignore these false attacks and join me, Gus Garcia in voting for Nelda Wells Spears for Travis County Tax Collector, a truly great public servant.
We can only hope that people all over this county, especially in the university community of inquisitive minds, will see through the tricks and lies, and stand united with people from East Austin for Nelda Spears.
The tax collector should have a bond of trust with the voters and taxpayers throughout this community.
With the kind of deceitful campaign Glen Maxey has run, he has disgraced himself as much as Carl Rove has, and there will be little, if anything, he can do after this election is over to change that. |
