The Texas District 23 House race is one of the few still to be decided this year. On December 12th, voters will choose between Republican Henry Bonilla and Democrat Ciro Rodriguez. Bonilla called a press conference yesterday (Dec. 4th) to accuse Rodriguez of ties to terrorists and to insinuate corruption. The charges were so ludicrous that, at first, only San Antonio's WOAI was willing to touch the story.
But what of Bonilla's record? During the 2004 campaign cycle, Bonilla accepted $1000 from the Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe, as part of the Jack Abramoff bribery scandal.
Texans For Henry Bonilla received $8500 from defense contractor ADCS, the main co-conspirator in the Duke Cunningham bribery scandal. Bonilla is on the House Defense Appropiations Committee.
In addition, Bonilla's political fund, the American Dream PAC, received a $3000 contribution from ADCS in 2005.
Strangely enough, one of Bonilla's largest 2005-2006 campaign contributors ($20,000) was... the American Dream PAC. Bonilla heads the PAC, and has done so since 1999. He awarded himself the highest contribution ever given by the PAC. (Tom Delay comes in second with half that.) He also used the American Dream PAC to give himself $5000 in 2002. I'm baffled as to why Bonilla, using the Texans for Henry Bonilla PAC, would donate $15,000 to the American Dream PAC, only to receive most of it back as campaign contributions.
The American Dream PAC was founded to provide financial assistance to minority Republican candidates. However, since Bonilla has taken over the organization, most of their contributions have gone to non-minority candidates, Tom Delay's defense fund, the Texas GOP redistricting fiasco and an embezzlement scheme for which one of their former treasurers was convicted in 2003.
Other interesting American Dream PAC and Texans For Henry Bonilla contributors include Enron, convicted felon Jeffrey Skillings, Arthur Andersen and Reliant Energy, all of whom contributed in 2000-2001 during the time that they were colluding to game the California energy market, leading to its collapse. Enron's last contribution was made 2 weeks after the SEC investigation into their dealings began, and a mere 3 days before Kenneth Lay announced that Enron had overstated its profits by $586 million.
Given that the FEC says Texans For Henry Bonilla has had 5555 individual contributors, I'm sure I could find much more than this, but my time is limited. Regardless, the facts above show clearly that Bonillas in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.