08/09/04  Step up or get stepped on.

At last Saturday's Birthday Bash for the Queen of Parkdale, several people mentioned the comments in Dallas Observer BUZZ "No Girlie Girl Sharon Boyd just keeps going and going", and they were shocked that I was not upset by Patrick Williams' comments.

For a lot of people, it is hard to understand why I do all this.  It's hard for me understand it, too.  But, I'm not the only one in town tilting at windmills and challenging wrong doers.  Allen Gwinn (www.Dallas.org) is so out there, he makes me seem meek and mild.

A few months ago, Jim Schutze did a really nasty column about Allen, and I still don't know why.  Allen Gwinn is pure and honest.  None of his activism is for personal gain.  He truly believes one or two people can make a difference.  He also believes that by methodically researching and having all his ducks in a row that he will move the bad guys to reconsider their bad ways and get on the Jesus train. 

I'm telling you Allen Gwinn thinks he can redeem Ron Price (DISD Trustee convicted of domestic abuse).  Where I avoid and shun people who I believe do or have done bad things, Allen Gwinn has that missionary gene that makes him believe there is redemption for all sinners and he wants to help them get right with the Lord.

Allen's faith in redemption does not keep him from going after elected officials and others he believes deliberately broke the rules.

As I told Patrick Williams, I am all for eliminating all election and campaign laws and just having a free for all so that whoever has the $$ for the most votes wins the deal.  As it is now, only the good guys follow the rules, and no one prosecutes the bad guys for blatantly violating election laws.  That's where Allen Gwinn and Sharon Boyd step up.

Steve Salazar had a decisive win over me and Linus Spiller last year.  No matter what, he probably would have won because the district is heavily Hispanic.  That's why it was stupid of DISD Trustee Joe Thug May to violate campaign contribution restrictions and send out a mailer against me.  I don't know if the mailer cost me the election -- it certainly did not help.  I do know that it was mailed by an elected official who knew exactly what he was doing, that he was violating campaign contribution limits.   He also knew that no one in an official capacity would do anything about it. 

Joe Thug May should have known that I would step up.

When Mary MPossible paid herself monies out of her campaign contributions for loans she had never declared in previous campaign reports, she violated election contribution laws.  When challenged about it, she dismissed it as an oversight ($30,000).  Later, she told some reporter that she had never really had to think about money and other people tended to that chore for her.  This from someone who claimed to be a former banker and who wanted to be Mayor of Dallas more than anything? 

Like Joe Thug, MPossible correctly assumed no one in an official capacity would do anything about it.  She did not count on Allen Gwinn willing to do the City Secretary's job.

Allen filed a complaint with the State Ethics Commission, which MPossible never took seriously.  After all, Allen Gwinn was just a local, political web activist who no one in her circle took seriously.  That was then.  Now, politicians take Allen very seriously because the Ethics Commission was forced to find her guilty of campaign law violations.  Allen did their homework, and they reluctantly did their job.

That case is still rocking things in Dallas, and in Austin.

Questionable Ethics at the Ethics Commission? BY JORDAN SMITH  (JUNE 4, 2004: NEWS)

It's been more than a year since former Texas Ethics Commission lawyer Robert Schmidt filed a whistle-blower lawsuit against his former TEC bosses ? alleging that his bosses acted unethically, playing political favorites with a complaint pending before the agency ? and not much has happened with the suit, still pending in district court. Meanwhile, a lot has happened at TEC and with one of Schmidt's former bosses, the agency's former Executive Director Tom Harrison. Indeed, Harrison's recent appointment as the agency's newest commissioner has sparked a new round of accusations that the Ethics Commission is ethically challenged.    Schmidt filed suit in November of 2002 against Harrison and the TEC, when he was fired after raising questions about the manner in which the agency was handling a complaint filed by Dallas activist Allen Gwinn against former council member and mayoral candidate Mary Poss (who lost the mayoral race to former Dallas Observer reporter Laura Miller). Poss, the complaint alleged, violated state law by failing to report campaign expenditures; Schmidt was assigned to investigate the complaint.    According to Schmidt's suit ..., he was fired in April 2002 after expressing his concern to Harrison and General Counsel Karen Lundquist that the two officials, in violation of commission rules, had knowingly failed to mail a legally required "status letter" to Gwinn and Poss. ... Schmidt wrote in a complaint to the TEC's human resources department. "I firmly believe, however, that Mr. Harrison actually terminated me because of recent conversations I had with him and Ms. Lundquist, general counsel, in which I questioned the propriety and legality of Mr. Harrison's conduct in connection with a sworn complaint."    According to the lawsuit, Poss hired as her attorney Ken Anderson, a friend of Harrison's .... Schmidt alleges Harrison violated agency procedure by communicating directly with Anderson and that he then advised Schmidt that the complaint needed a "quick resolution" because Anderson was about to leave private practice for a political career. Schmidt says he presented a summary of the complaint to the commission in November 2001 and that the commission subsequently proposed a resolution to Poss and Anderson. Poss had three weeks to respond but never did so. (Last summer, Poss paid a $5,000 fine to resolve the complaint but was not required to admit to any wrongdoing.) ...

Robert Schmidt could have gone along with other public officials and pushed Gwinn's complaint out to Never Never Land, but he stepped up.  Initially, he got stepped on, but he's fighting back.

The $5,000 fine to Poss was no big deal.  She's rich and she had paid herself $30,000+, which likely covered her attorney fees.  There certainly is no financial gain to Allen Gwinn.

So, why did Allen tilt at this windmill in the first place?  Well, because it needed to be done.  It was necessary.

What has happened to us?  People used to stand up for what's right regardless of the consequences.  Now, we ignore stuff when we know it's wrong, so long as it doesn't impact us personally.

Funny thing about ignoring the bad guys -- they are never content with the first score or scam.  They always come back for another rush.  It's a game for them.

It goes all the way up to national issues and international issues.  Everyone hopes the bad guys will blow up the building down the street or in another city, preferably another state -- rather than standing up to them.

One actress, promoting a movie with her co-star, told the interviewer that we should have turned our cheek after 9/11, "like Jesus".   She expected her co-star to back her up, he said instead "I don't know.  Jesus beat the hell out of the money changers in the Temple."  His comments made me grin and made me think.

Pacifists would have us believe that Christianity is only about forbearance and forgiveness.   Christianity is also about personal responsibility and strength.  We are not just responsible for keeping to the straight and narrow ourselves, but to stand up and point out the bad doers and the deeds they do -- and then be willing to go the extra mile to force the bad guys to play nice and by the rules or suffer the consequences.

Folks who live in the gray world where there is no black and white, no right and wrong -- total ambiguity resent people like Allen Gwinn and me.  How dare we presume to know right from wrong?  Worse, how dare we expect anyone to follow the rules?

The phrase the "soft bigotry of low expectations" is not just about racial issues.  It's a sad day in America and Dallas in particular when it is an odd thing to stand up for your rights and your values and public laws.

Dallas is lucky to have Allen Gwinn.  He may be a stickler for detail, but he truly believes in fair play.  He thinks he has been blessed with a good life and the ability to get things done, so he has a responsibility to stand up for what's right.

In most places on this earth, the locals would think that all of us living in Dallas and the USA are blessed.  We are.  With that blessing comes the responsibility to do what's right and try to right some wrongs when we can.

To whom much is given, much is required.

I feel like a preacher, and about now I should be giving the invitation to the congregation.  Rather than singing, "Sinners, Come Home...", I'm going to end with

Citizens, step up for what's right, or we will be stepped on by those who do wrong. 
 
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