Henry Bonilla wants you to forget he had his own nanny problems too.
On October 24, 1994 a national AP story titled "Texas Lawmaker Joins Huffington in Nanny Problems" had this interesting point to make:
Senate hopeful Michael Huffington of California isn't the only lawmaker with a nanny problem erupting close to Election Day. Rep. Henry Bonilla, R-Texas, also found himself fending off trouble Friday after reports surfaced that he employed an undocumented British worker as a nanny for almost seven years.
[…]
In Texas, Bonilla has been a strong supporter of beefing up the Border Patrol to combat the flow of illegal aliens into the United States. In a Feb. 18 letter published in the San Antonio Express-News, Bonilla wrote: "Illegal immigrants are a tremendous drain on our society. They use our hospitals, our schools and our social services without paying the taxes to support them. "The Justice Department in April ended without prosecution a 10-month investigation of Bonilla's employment of the British nanny. Bonilla vigorously denied any wrongdoing in employing the woman from 1986 through early 1993. But he acknowledged not paying back taxes on the nanny's wages until early 1993. He refused to divulge how much he paid, saying it was a private matter.
Bonilla's hypocrisy is well documented. This is just another example of Repulican's leading with a, "do as I say not as I do" philosophy. During that same time, Bonilla scored a 48% from Americans for Better Immigration, a 17% score from the Committee on Border Control, and countless goose eggs from the American Immigration Lawyers Associations.
"Donna Howard and her local Democratic partisan cohorts ran an extraordinarily negative campaign this past spring. That was very difficult for my family, very difficult for myself," Bentzin told the Statesman today.
He also said he believed there was "an imbalance in terms of (press) coverage" of the campaign.
I had a much different perspective on the HD-48 race: Rep. Donna Howard ran a terrific campaign. The fact that they ran an effective, fact-driven campaign about Bentzin's ties to Tom Delay just goes to show that the political culture of corruption had no place in HD 48.
With Bentzin off the ballot, Rep. Donna Howard is now a lock for re-election. We've taken back HD-48 -- let's look elsewhere in the state. Read the journal entry below about Juan Garcia's race against Gene Seaman, and help donate to send more Democrats to the Texas House.
Ed. note -- I'll be updating this post throughout the day, as we begin looking at totals from across the state for various races. Totals for the Governor's race are here.
HD 48 -- Rep. Donna Howard vs. Ben Bentzin Ben Bentzin, the purported challenger to Rep. Donna Howard in HD-48 right here in Austin, TX, has $20.33 on hand. Howard, meanwhile, has nearly $65,000 cash-on-hand. Remember -- she didn't accept any money during the special session and her report covered a shorter period of time, due to the primary.
CD 17 -- Congressman Chet Edwards vs. Van Taylor
Edwards reported $1.576 million cash-on-hand. Taylor, meanwhile, is well over a million dollars behind Edwards, and despite an in-district visit from VP Cheney, Taylor only garnered $21,000 from inside the district.
In the "Say What?" category. According to an article in The Daily Texan, the Travis County Libertarian party is claiming that a Susan Combs PAC gave money to Bentzin illegaly.
Committees listed as specific-purpose groups are prohibited from contributing to another candidate's campaign unless they have amended their records to show they are a general-purpose PAC, according to Title 15 of the Texas Ethics Commission election code.
It is difficult to determine the motivation behind one candidate's contribution to another, said Tim Sorrells, deputy general council for TEC.
The problem is determining whether or not the Combs committee, which is registered as a specific-purpose committee with TEC, was acting as a general-purpose committee without being listed as such, Sorrells said.
The committee last registered as a specific-purpose committee with TEC in September of 2004, but did not change their committee purpose to supporting Bentzin, according to TEC.
In Bentzin's reports filed with TEC Feb. 6, Friends of Susan Combs is listed 30 separate times as a contributor, including one entry of $6,107 for office supplies.
Bentzin's campaign could be held responsible for knowingly accepting illegal contributions, even though the complaint did not list him.
Money from Friends of Susan Combs was not given directly to Bentzin's PAC, but was used to pay for mailing expenses, phone expenses, office supplies and professional services for the campaign, according to the TEC document.
Is this a big deal? Does this hurt Bentzin (like he needs the help hurting himself) or Combs?
Check out the Statesman for the audio recording of today's debate between Donna Howard and Ben Bentzin for the HD-48 Runoff. Click the banner up top to check out early voting locations or to do some phonebanking from your home.
According to Texas Weekly, Donna's spending in the first round came to an efficient $10.43 for each vote she received, compared to the whopping $51.26 her opponent spent for each of his.
Please call the campaign at 512-971-9488 to donate, contribute online here, or send a check to Donna Howard for State Rep, PO Box 2124, Austin, TX 78768-2124.
Now, on top of that, Howard's 8 day report details more than 600 contributions totaling $146,476.33. And if you happened to catch a copy of the Daily Texan last week, you would have seen the ads taken out by Bentzin, as he was hiring paid blockwalkers. Talk about having to buy your support...
Update:
The Statesman endorses Donna Howards, again. And to any of you worried about wanting to sign Kinky or Carol 4-Names petitions...
Registered voters in the district who didn't cast a ballot in last month's special election may vote in the runoff. Also, voting in the runoff does not disqualify anyone from signing a petition for independent gubernatorial candidates Kinky Friedman or Carole Keeton Strayhorn.
So don't let anything stop you, get as many votes in for Donna as you can now during Early Voting. Let's crush Bentzin a second time, so that this fall the Republicans may give up in favor of other opportunities.
First reported by In the Pink and then picked up by PinkDome, we have an interesting report on a lawsuit filed against HD-48 Republican candidate Ben Bentzin by his former nanny.
PinkDome got a copy of the suit filed in Travis County District Court. It was dated March 15, 2005: 1:35 p.m.
But here are some of the good parts in the suit.
"Defendants take between five and seven weeks of vacation each year." ...
Count Two: Defamation. Love this one. Since the nanny was out looking for another job Joanie (Bentzin) (allegedly) told prospective employers that the nanny she employed for three years was a deadbeat. So, if you keep a deadbeat in your employ for three years which party is more of a deadbeat? The party of the first part or...Ben Bentzin.
Count Three: Boring..
Count Four: Intention Infliction of Emotional Distress. This is the one where Joan demanded the pregnant nanny power wash the home and clean their boat. ...
Count Five: Conspiracy Among the Defendants. Dum-dum-dum!
In the Pink picks up on that last point as well.
The nanny says that she routinely worked more than 40 hours per week but wasn’t compensated for overtime, to the tune of $13K. (Honey, I haven’t been compensated for a year.) Also, Joanie demanded that the nanny, while pregnant, power wash their 10,000 square foot home and clean their boat. POWER WASH their home? This alone would cause me severe emotional distress.
And don't forget that Bentzin tried to hide until the last minute some quarter of a million in donations, which generated suits from the Howard campaign and the Libertarian Party.
Does the new header button in support of Donna Howard look ok to everyone? Feel free to use the image on your own blogs, I'll be keeping it up there just through the special election.
