CD 23: Uresti Family Puts Their Support Behind Ciro Rodriguez
Vince Leibowitz | Nov 15, 2006 | Comments 2
The politically powerful Uresti family has thrown its unified support to Ciro Rodriguez in the CD 23 race to unseat Congressman Henry Bonilla.
Albert Uresti, who ran against Rodriguez and Bonilla in the special election that was held concurrent with the general election on Election Day, joined his brother, State Senator Carlos Uresti (D-San Antonio) in supporting Rodriguez. This means that now all of Bonilla’s opponents have endorsed the
former Congressman.
The endorsement will be announced Thursday in a press conference.
Albert Uresti noted that the impending runoff brings the district a unique opportinuty in a Rodriguez press release:
“Henry Bonilla simply hasn’t done his job to provide fresh ideas on how to protect our troops and bring an honorable peace to the war in Iraq. This runoff represents the people’s chance to make changes in our Iraq policy and bring our troops home. Bonilla continues claiming to support our troops and yet he continues to send them into harm’s way,” said Albert Uresti.
“The Republican leadership has failed, as signaled by the November elections. Uniting the Democrats behind one democrat in this Congressional election is important so that we may continue the change of direction in our country,” said Uresti.
Carlos Uresti’s district closely mirrors the boundaries of the 23rd Congressional District. Albert Uresti fell in behind Bonilla and Rodriguez and was the second-top Democratic vote getter on November 7.
More:
Senator Carlos Uresti called on people to seize the opportunity to return the district to someone that represents their interests and not the interests of indicted Republican Majority Leader Tom Delay, who orchestrated a redistricting plan that the Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional. “People are having a tough time with the high costs of healthcare, taking care of their children’s education, gasoline, and wages falling. Bonilla’s record doesn’t pass the test with people in the district. Now we must unite around Ciro Rodriguez to turn out the vote and send the message that we want leadership that works for us and not the lobbyists in Washington.”
![[Post to Twitter]](/wp-content/plugins/tweet-this/icons/tt-twitter.png){kind=icon}
![[Post to Ping.fm]](/wp-content/plugins/tweet-this/icons/tt-ping.png){kind=icon}
Filed Under: 2006 Texas Elections
In 1999, Henry Bonilla took over an independent Political Action Committee known as the American Dream PAC. Bonilla promised to “give significant, direct financial assistance” to minority political candidates.
Under the first four years of Bonilla’s supervision over the American Dream PAC, Bonilla collected $550,000.00 to fulfill his promise to help fund minority political candidates, but Bonilla gave less than $50,000 to minority candidates seeking public office. Bonilla used less than 9% of the funds collected to serve the interests which Bonilla promised to serve.
Instead, Bonilla used over twice as much money collected by this supposedly “independent” Political Action Committee (more than $100,000.00) to pay off partisan Republican Party organizations and causes, including corrupt Republican Tom DeLay’s criminal defense fund. This is the same Tom DeLay who violated the Voting Rights Act to illegally gerrymander Bonilla’s congressional district in a failed attempt to dilute the votes of over 100,000 Latino voters in Bonilla’s district. Even the Republican-dominated Supreme Court had to reject Bonilla’s gerrymandered district because DeLay and Bonilla “took away the Latinos’ opportunity because Latinos were about to exercise it” against Bonilla.
Bonilla said that his corrupt PAC gave only small donations to the minority political candidates he pledged to support because he couldn’t find “good, solid minority candidates to expend the funds on. We tried to be judicious and not just throw money out the window.” Bonilla did not comment on why he considered fulfilling his promise to fund minority candidates throwing “money out the window” while he didn’t consider giving away those funds to Tom DeLay’s criminal defense fund throwing money out the window.
In 2003, Bonilla’s committee treasurer pleaded guilty in a San Antonio federal court to embezzling $119,021 of the funds collected for promising minority candidates, and she was sentenced to 15 months in prison. Due to lax oversight, Bonilla did not discover this theft for over four years, and even Bonilla had to admit that this “was a black mark on my judgment.”
Henry Bonilla, with his record of broken promises and corruption, must be stopped!
Ohhhhhhhhh, Thank you!
Can’t wait to check out the Stop Bonillia Blog.
Vince