In Texas today, Democrats are only relevant when Republicans empower them. With so little attention on them, it is easy to forget why Texans have given them so little authority. However, they’ve done their best to remind us this month.
State Rep. Ron Reynolds (D – Fort Bend County) leads the charge. According to KHOU Houston, his offices were raided by law enforcement Monday in connection with a sordid case of barratry (an illegal activity also known as “ambulance chasing”). It includes tales of cash allegedly paid in envelopes by Reynolds to Robert Valdez, the reported ringleader, and this after Reynolds dodged the exact same charge last summer.
San Antonio mayor Julian Castro, a darling of the national Democratic Party, is in the news for 41 instances of accepting illegal donations. Mayor Castro might need to be more careful next time he’s out cruising for donations.
According to the FBI, a donor to Democrats named Marc Rosenthal was recently convicted on 13 counts relating to a bribery scheme in South Texas. The FBI’s press release included the following:
After a four-week trial, jurors convicted Rosenthal of conspiring to bribe a state district judge, bribe witnesses in both state and federal court cases, file fraudulent personal injury cases in both state and federal courts, and deprive the citizens of Cameron County, Texas, of the right to honest services of an elected official.
Rosenthal played a major role in Democrat State Rep. Diana Maldonado’s 2008 and 2010 election campaigns. He’s also given to Texas Trial Lawyers Association and other Democrats, something reported on by Williamson County political blogger Holly Hansen.
Freshman State Rep. Naomi Gonzales (D – El Paso) has made quite a name for herself already in Austin . According to the El Paso Times, Gonzales drove her BMW into a Fiat with two women in it, who then hit a cyclist.
According to the El Paso Times, Gonzales never even apologized for the incident, though she apologized to the state House, and got a standing ovation from colleagues trying to save her political skin.
The women hit by the drunken Gonzales were flabbergasted as to why the House would have given Gonzales a standing ovation. It is a credit to these women that they don’t seem to understand the political practice of turning evil into good, good into evil, heroism into cowardice, and cowardice into heroism.
Republicans get more scrutiny in Texas because they have more power, but things like these remind Texans why they don’t allow Democrats much power in our state government. When Republicans screw up, they usually pay a price, and this is because they have standards.
When Democrats screw up – well – Rep. Gonzales got a standing ovation. Democrats don’t make much of a pretense to strong moral fiber. As a result, there is less to talk about when they violate public confidence. However, this is not a compliment to them. Having low standards is nothing to brag about.
A writer name Francois de La Rochefoucald once said, “Hypocrisy is the homage vice pays to virtue.” It means that while hypocrisy and unvarnished evil are both bad, at least hypocrisy still acknowledges the superiority of virtue over vice. There is a lot of truth in this, and it has political implications today.
It is best for a politician to have good standards that they meet. Next best is for them to have good standards that they they truly try to meet, but fall short. Next, there is hypocrisy – pretending to have standards you don’t really have because you know you should. While this is not something to be admired, at least politicians like these create an obstacle for themselves to do evil. This is certainly preferable to no standards at all, which is the worst of all situations.
Politicians that don’t even make a pretense to virtue are the most dangerous, and it is their voters who are to blame. The Democratic brand nationally has gotten pretty shameless, and this should ward off voters.
It seems to have just that effect in our state, thank God.
–Rep. Reynolds KHOU bribery scheme article
–Julian Castro campaign finance allegations press release from Texas Ethics Advisory Board
–FBI press release on attorney Marc Rosenthal
–Williamson County Conservative post on Rosenthal
–Rep. Gonzales’ unhappy drunk driving victims article