Andrae Cox
                             

08/05/04  Somebody has to stand up to the bad guys.

If bad guys didn't do bad things, there would be no need for Judges and trial lawyers.  If everyone followed the rules and did the right thing (even when no one is looking), we would not need courts at all. 

But then, if "wishes were fishes, we would need more dishes."

Although I do believe in redemption, most bad guys like doing bad stuff and very unlikely to seek salvation.  They are just as likely to stop doing bad stuff without legal authorities spanking their behinds.  Each time a bad guy gets away with doing something wrong, he is emboldened to do it again and to up the stakes.

The only explanation for the stupidity of a stunt Joe May pulled in my District 6 race against Steve Salazar and Linus Spiller is that he has gotten away with so much blatant vote harvesting schemes, he thinks he is invincible.  Although Joe Thug lives in East Dallas (City Council District 2) in one of his slum properties, he paid for and sent out a mailer in District 6, as DallasArena.com reported in May's Mailer.

My lawyer tried to use a less expensive procedure to take depositions of Joe Thug and others to determine the actual cost of the mailer, which is a direct contribution to Steve Salazar's campaign.  Domingo Garcia represented Joe May and the other person we wanted to depose.  Interestingly, the postage meter on the flier is registered to the "Garcia Campaign", but Garcia seemed genuinely shocked that it was used on the flier.

The Judge ruled that we could not use the deposition only procedure earlier this year, so it was necessary to file a lawsuit. 

BUZZ No Girlie Girl Sharon Boyd just keeps going and going By Patrick Williams dallasobserver.com | originally published: August 5, 2004

Conservative local political blogger Sharon Boyd (www.dallasarena.com) sometimes reminds Buzz of the Terminator. No matter how hard you knock her down, up, up she comes again, ready for another pointless sequel. Sometimes we wonder why she bothers, particularly now. Boyd recently filed a lawsuit against DISD trustee Jose Joe May, alleging he violated election finance laws by spending more than the lawful contribution limit of $1,000 when he sent out a mailer supporting city Councilman Steve Salazar in Salazar's District 6 race against Boyd in May 2003. ...  So why, we asked her, would she file a suit now, especially since the most she could recover in damages is attorneys fees and twice whatever May spent on the mailing, which Boyd's Web site claims must have been at least $1,500 for printing and postage? ... "If we have rules, we should follow them," Boyd says. "Somebody's got to say enough, or otherwise let's call off all elections in this town." ...  free speech costs a lot of dough to publish or put on the air, so why should May or anyone else be told how much of their own cash they can spend to disseminate words in support of a political candidate? ... Oddly enough, Boyd agrees. "Some of the people who donated to my campaign would have donated more, but I couldn't let them," says Boyd, who doesn't believe that Salazar himself had anything to do with May's flier. ...  The rules are what they are, so "either do away with them or make people follow them...especially an elected official," Boyd says...

The first time I ever heard of "vote harvesting" was in John Loza's campaign against Brenda Reyes.  While the rest of us were working our tails off to get SMSM Loza elected, Joe Thug sat around looking at lists of voters.  On election night, Loza won by about 150 votes, exactly how many "harvested" votes Joe Thug May delivered with his system of intimidating senior voters to give him their mail-in ballots for him to "deliver" them to the Elections Department.

Joe Thug used the same vote harvesting system to beat an educator for a seat on the School Board by 25 votes.  Mike Martinez won on election day and in early voting at the polls, but May won with harvested ballots.  A reporter told me recently that after the election, he ran into Joe Thug and congratulated him on his victory.  Joe Thug said with his mail-in ballot system, "I could get a collie elected."  A dog would be an improvement over John Loza or Joe May in public office.

In answer to Patrick Williams' question, I filed a lawsuit last week against Joe May over what I believe to be illegal campaign tactic against me and Linus Spiller in our respective city council contests with Steve Salazar, who won the election. 

Why am I doing this over a year after the election, particularly since I think Councilman Salazar is doing a good job as councilman for District 6?  Quite simply, it's because Joe Thug is an elected official and he did something wrong.  The District Attorney's Office will not do anything, the City Secretary will not do anything and we have council races coming up in May.  I don't want Joe Thug to do what he did to me to another candidate in any future race in any Dallas city council district.

Loza's District 2 seat will be open next year.  Joe May is expected to be a candidate for that council seat.  If he is a candidate, he and his partner in crime will use every dirty trick in the book to win that place for him.  One trick that I hope to shut off by my lawsuit is his blatant violation of campaign donation/spending restrictions.

The rules are specific.  No individual donor can contribute more than $1000 to a particular council campaign and no more than $5000 to a mayoral campaign.  The rule has been in place a long, long time.  Joe Thug knows the rules and chose to blatantly violate them last year.

I wrote about it a few weeks after the election in May's Mailer, where the flyer is reproduced on both sides.  Except for one particular line in the mailer, it was not the content that concerned me. 

When I stepped out to oppose Tom Hicks and Ross Perot, Jr. and Ron Kirk, I knew I would be forever branded as a "rabble rouser" and "troublemaker" and an "aginner", etc., etc.  Our Downtown Betters (the ODB) do not tolerate an uppity, middle class, unmarried female interfering with their plans to exploit Dallas taxpayers.  The Dallas Managed News, D Magazine and the Dallas Observer (they even questioned my jaw movement when I talk) have all taken shots at me.

The content line in May's illegal campaign flyer that shocked me was:

I realize that Joe Thug May is from Laredo and hopes to move back there someday (not soon enough), but he is in Dallas, Texas, a city in the United States of America.  To say that no one who doesn't speak Spanish should represent District 6 is absolutely racist.  District 6 is not Joe May's "community" because he lives in East Dallas in one of his slum properties. 

District 6 may be predominantly Hispanic because Mad Max Aaronson and Joe Thug May and the rest of the sellouts on the Redistricting Commission who voted with them drew it that way.  There are lots of African-Americans in District 6, lots of Asian-Americans in District 6, lots of Whites in District 6 and lots of non-Spanish-speaking Hispanics in District 6.  When I walked neighborhoods, I took a translator with me in case a voter did not speak English.   There were very few occasions his assistance was needed, and many occasions where the voter did not speak Spanish.

Linus Spiller also ran against Steve Salazar and me.  He is African-American and does not speak Spanish.  Linus has lived in his home for several years, which was in the old District 6 and is in the current District 6.  According to Joe Thug, a Black citizen and taxpayer who does not speak Spanish is not qualified to represent the district where he lives.

As offensive and racist as the content of May's mailer, it was not the reason for the lawsuit.

Joe May spent more than $1,000 on that mailer.  Had the moron's political disclaimer at the bottom of the mailer included others, then he would not have broken any laws.

Having done 3 mailers to District 6 voters, I can assure you between production, printing, mail house lists and postage, you cannot do a mailer for $1,000.  Joe Thug May and his campaign are bound by the $1,000 per donor limit.  He knows it, and so does the person who prepared the mailer. 

Although having watched two former friends morph into ODB gofers and seeing others compromise their standards to protect zoning cases in their own districts (ward politics at its worse), I still believe there are honest people who will do the right thing if they are given the opportunity.  Part of getting the opportunity is competing in fair elections.

If the City Secretary and the County Elections Department are not going to enforce the restrictions of our election laws, then get them off the books.  Let the ODB give as much money as they want (they do anyway) to their chosen candidates.  Eventually, they will outbid each other and someone decent will squeak through.

There are some very wealthy people in this town who do believe in honest government, who are not ODB, who would fund a slate of candidates, but they are limited by the $1000 restriction.  Because they follow the rules (believing in honest government, as they do), they are disenfranchised when Joe Thug and his ilk get away with violating campaign law.

So, I now have another label "Terminator" to add to:  "divisive" (Lordi Palmer said that about me), "jaw impaired" (Dallas Observer), "seemingly insane" (D Magazine).  I like what Tim Dickey said about me in a letter to the DMN Editor:  "... kick-rear-and-take-names activist". 

The more I think about it, the better I like being considered our local "Terminator", after all he fought the bad guys.  If he didn't win every battle, he at least slowed them down to give the good guys a chance at an even playing field.

sb