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Blake Farenthold for Congress 

Warren Political Blog

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Politically Correct

After Congressional redistricting that was effective for the 2004 election cycle, politics got very interesting in South Texas. I was an ardent and active supporter of the Republican candidate, Michael Thamm, who was running for Congress against Ruben Hinojosa in District 15, and up the river in District 25 Democrat Lloyd Doggett was running against Rebecca Klein (that is the Rio Grande as opposed to sending someone to jail). Originally someone else was running against Lloyd Doggett, but when the gentleman found out that all the Republican powers to be in Austin had attended Lloyd’s fund raiser he resigned as the candidate with prejudice. So in steps Rebecca Klein, the consummate insider, to take over the candidacy along with all the perks and promises of the Republican powers in Washington and Austin; paid campaign workers, TV ads, etc. Of course Lloyd Doggett had been a winner in Texas politics since 1994 and with South Texas historically voting heavily for Democrats, Rebecca was an extreme long shot at best. Statistical data and polls heavily pointed to the fact that Michael Thamm had a much better chance at winning his seat, but he was only an ex-mayor of a small city whereas Rebecca had worked for Texas Governor George Walker Bush and was serving on the Texas Public Utilities Commission prior to her candidacy.

Long story short: Michael received 41 % of the votes after spending $35,000 to Ruben Hinojosa’s $700,000; Rebecca only received a little over 30% of the vote even with all the resources of the Republican Party behind her. Even with Cameron County being a red dot in a sea of blue for the presidential election, we couldn’t pull Michael into the position because of the disparate allocation of resources. I personally liked Rebecca, but we were all envious of her resources. The general opinion within our campaign was that Rebecca was an insider, a female, and had a Hispanic surname before her marriage whereas Michael was an Anglo running against a Hispanic in South Texas.

Generally when I made a donation to the Republican Party I always assumed that the money would be used to support WINNABLE elected positions in government; I never thought that being politically correct would be a prime consideration, but then what do I know? I for one will not be throwing my money down RAT HOLES any more; I will be giving it directly to the candidates I support.

Illegal Alien

Back in the late 1990’s I had occasion to work for one of my customers in Reynosa, Mexico. When I first started, my customer would just drive me over to Mexico, I would work on their computers, and they would take me back to their office in Harlingen at the end of the day. This went on for several months with me working about once a week until one day the manager in Mexico I was working with informed me that I should be ready to run out the back door if the Mexican Work Enforcement Officers raided their office. Seeing as I weighed about three hundred pounds, I was not up for trying to evade the police in 100 degree weather. Here I was an ILLEGAL ALIEN and didn’t even know it. Then the coup de grace; the fine for working illegally in Mexico was $3,000 for the person working illegally and $3,000 for the person hiring them (this was U.S. dollars, not Pesos). Of course the Mexican government has a unique way of making sure you pay your fines; you go to one of those nice Mexican jails until the fine is paid. In Mexico you are guilty until a judge determines that you are not; there are no speedy trials.

This recalls an ironic story that happened to a college student that was buying Valium with a prescription at a pharmacy in Reynosa, Mexico. The pharmacist sold her the drugs and as she was leaving the Pharmacy the police stopped her and determined that she had purchased over 100 pills. The pharmacy had sold her the pills, but she had purchased over the legal limit and was thrown in jail. It turns out that the pharmacy had called the police. After being in jail for over a year and after much effort by her family and Texas State Senator Eddie Lucio, she was returned to a joyful reunion and celebration with her family at a motel in McAllen, Texas. Later on that evening the girl had an asthma attack and died before the ambulance could get her to the hospital. Her family blamed the death on her treatment in the Mexican prison, but the Mexican Government is across the Rio Grande and nothing ever came of the situation.

Getting back to my work related problem; it was determined that I needed to get a FM-3 or Mexican work permit so I wouldn’t have to worry about running around in the hot South Texas/Mexican sun. The following is what was required to get a permit to work in Mexico:

  1. A completed visa application.
  2. A U.S. Passport that is valid for at least 1 year.
  3. A letter on Company Letterhead introducing the applicant (in Spanish).
  4. Two letters of support (Bank and Customer).
  5. Two color passport photos.
  6. A letter from your local Police Department stating that you don’t have a criminal record.
  7. $97 in cash or money order (NO CHECKS ACCEPTED).

I had to wait for half a day at the Mexican Consulate in McAllen in order to complete the application process. At the time I must have really thought I wanted to work in Mexico. Now I had my FM-3 and started driving my white 1998 Dodge Quad Cab into Mexico when I had a job to do. When you go through Mexican Customs they are supposed to pull you over on a random basis; I got pulled over 9 times out of 10 and had my truck searched each time with a fine tooth comb. The question I was always asked was if I was carrying over $10,000 with me, and then they would laugh as they continued opening sealed boxes, tool kits, and door compartments. I finally came to the realization that they wanted my truck and were looking for a reason to confiscate it. I got the company I was working for to provide me one of their leased company cars after that. The last time I went into Mexico to work I was asked by the manager if I wanted to have lunch with him in the employee lunch room or wait until I crossed back into the United States to get lunch. I had lunch in Mexico and didn’t get off the pot for the next three days when I got home. Now for the end of the story; a FM-3 work permit is good for 1 year, but you have to leave it at your Mexican point of entry when it’s expired. The penalty for not turning the work permit back in would cause the sponsoring company to get fined plus much trouble in their future efforts in obtaining Mexican work permits.

Being a Democrat

During the 1984 election cycle I was a Democrat through and through. My recently deceased wife had been a die hard liberal who thought the sun rose and set with Pat Schroeder (D–Colorado) and I had a liberal upbringing in New England. My wife had been an active supporter of Bobby Kennedy and we both thought that we needed to take care of the disadvantaged by giving them our surplus (I now shudder at the thought). The daughter that I was raising on my own was 8 years old, I had just moved to Harlingen from Houston in 1982, and I was just starting my computer business. I thought that Reagan was a doddering old fool that was going to bring about the demise of the Free World. I can’t tell you how angry I got over the Iran-Contra affair and Ollie North.

This was the year that the Texas Democratic Party made an effort to bring politics out of the back room and let the delegates to the County Convention get selected at the Precinct Level by allowing everyone who voted in the primary to participate in a caucus after the polls had closed. I was a fervent Gary Hart backer and when I attended the caucus I was selected to be a Hart delegate at the Cameron County Democratic Convention.

I will never forget what happened next. In 1970 my wife had purchased a new VW Karman Ghia in Denver, and even though it had no air conditioning, we both drove this car everywhere and it had history. I left the caucus and was stopped at a four way stop a block away when a lady that had just rented a car from the airport plowed into the back of the Karman Ghia. She was doing 35 miles per hour, and never touched her brakes because she was putting on her makeup. My car was knocked fifty feet into the middle of the intersection and my seatback was broken and bent backwards. I was however without personal injury, but I was not a happy camper. I recall standing by the car in the middle of the intersection, watching the rest of my fellow caucus attendees driving by, and trying to keep my conversation with the other driver in a civil tone. The police and wrecker soon showed up and everyone went their own way.

When I attended the county Convention in Brownsville our precinct was seated next to the Cameron County Judge, Moses Vela. I soon got the impression that Gary Hart delegates were not the most popular people as the judge kept leaning over and telling me, “If you can fart, you’re for Hart!” I soon found that a ticket to the State Convention was an insider position as the Hart delegate was a young lady that had done a lot of work for the Democratic Party. So, how did I go from a raging liberal to a conservative; I guess that future experiences made me realize that giving things to persons who make poor life choices is not the answer to their problems and the demise of Communism sure made Reagan look like a genius.

Wage and Hour

Have you ever known someone that had a pay rate problem with an employer? United States wage and hour laws state the minimum wage that employers are supposed to pay their employees, and by law an employer is supposed to display a chart with wage information for their employees. The chart proclaims that if you have a problem with your pay all you have to do is file a complaint with the wage and hour enforcement department.

When I moved down to the Rio Grande Valley from Houston and started my computer business in the early eighties, one of the first jobs I did for one of my customers was to do their payroll for them. In the process of setting up the RealWorld payroll on their computer I got to use the management skills I had developed while working for Sky Chefs and pointed out to their manager that they were handling their overtime calculations incorrectly. When I told them that they were leaving themselves open to many problems if one of their employees complained to wage and hour, they were skeptical at first. Upon checking the situation out though, they found that I was right. The end result was that I personally did their in house payroll for the next 5 years. I finally got them to take the task over so I didn’t have to worry about not being able to take jobs out of the Valley.

Now back to the crux of the matter. I have always had a problem with people trusting me and telling me personal secrets that I often times don’t want to be privy to; including people unloading their employee woes on me:

All the preceding people elected to find other employment or lived with the problem rather than take the high road and file the complaint to fix the problem. The problem of trying to circumvent the wage and labor laws pervades out society. Too many of us are trying to gain an unfair advantage without consideration of the people we are affecting. You would think that any individual could just call wage and hour to file a complaint against the people that were not playing by the rules. Not true; the complaint to wage and hour has to be filed by the person being wronged. If your doctor is cheating Medicare the Government will pay you a reward to turn them in; if your neighbor is abusing his children you are obligated to report him to the police; but if your friend is not being paid properly by his employer the Government doesn’t want to hear about it from you. Any law that our Government puts on the books is only as good as the enforcement of it; I personally feel that our Government puts lots of good laws on the books for politically expedient reasons and then guts the law by turning a blind eye to or failing to fund enforcement. Too many laws; too much lack of enforcement! I guess I’m being far too logical and optimistic! If it’s worth making the law then shouldn’t it be worth enforcing?