OLIVEIRA'S CONSPICUOUS CONSUMPTION WAYS GO WAY BACK

By Juan Montoya
We have grown inured to the predictable gutter sniping from small people over some of our posts.
By now we have gotten used to have others piggyback on our posts under the guise of literary criticswhen they can't come up with their own ideas for news stories.

Carl Sandburg said of Lincoln that a tree is best measured when it's down and some rival social media outlets that appear and disappear like smoke seem to view us in that light. They can't stand us, but write about our work on a daily basis.

That happened again when we wrote about the wining and dining by our District 37 State Representative Rene Oliveira.

We wrote that the Texas Monitor listed him as the fifth (out of 150) state reps that have lived high off the hog on campaign contributions.

Representing, as he does, the poorest community in the United States, his ostentatious ways indicate a disconnect with his constituents that, if not shameful, is an exhibition of conspicuous consumption worthy of a Gargantua or a Marie Antoinette sniffing what the peasants can do: "Let them eat beans."

As a rule, public officials and politicians have a lower expectation of privacy that normal folks do. Since it was them who sought the public's attention and political support, they should expect to be scrutinized, not lionized by media types. Now, we know that Don Duncan over at the Brownsville Holler always laughed at the new guys who just got out of college and were put under his tutelage.

"You say you're a journalist?," Duncan would guffaw. "A journalist is a newspaper man out of work."
Yeah, old Don had a way of bringing you down to earth real quick.
In politics, as in business, there are no friends. It's a dog-eat-dog world and everyone knows the rules. It's downright foolish to expect something different.
But we digress.

Oliveira has not only been in the sights of investigative reporters in Austin (as in the Monitor), but also of his own staff who way back in 2011 warned him of his obvious bon vivant lifestyle at the expense of the PACS and high-end contributors. Small contributors make up about 18 percent of the total in his contributions. The other 82 percent are special-interest groups (electric companies, tort reform groups, insurance companies, etc) with a vested interest in keeping him there.

Way back then, even his chief of staff J.J. Garza warned him in an internal memo dated July 12, 2011, that he should be preparing answers to the questions that could come from reporters once they started looking over the expense report filed covering the period from January 1 to June 30, 2011. Six years later, the leopard has not changed his spots.

Oliveira reported that in that period back in 2011, he had spent $40,063 and had received no contributions. However, he also reported that he had $159,519.27 left in his war chest for the coming primary election in 2012.
"I think you need to develop a satisfactory answer to the following facts of the (expenditure report)," Garza wrote.
"In the 181 days (your account) paid for meals and/or drinks for supporters and/or constituents almost 200 times (actually 197) for a total of more than$13,000 (actually $13,360). In some cases these expenditures occurred as many as four times in a day, and make up one-third of your total expenditures.

"Fifty six of those times were Valley establishments – 50 times during the regular session and six times during the special session. This means that you entertained supporters and constituents in Austin about 150 times during the 140-day regular session. Considering that often the Austin week is less than a full week – the House met in session just 101 of those 140 days – that means means you were entertaining supporters or constituents an average of 1.5 times per day the House was in session.

"Over the 181 day reporting period, you average almost $74 per day in entertaining expenses.
"Why do you need to spend so much, when your Valley colleagues are spending as little as 10 to 20 percent of what you are spending on supporters and constituents?," Garza asks in his memo.
"I think you should prepare yourself for heavy criticism from them and their readers," Garza warns the festive rep.
How far out of touch has Rene gotten from us, his constituents?

Read the following from Wikipedia:

"The median income for a household in Cameron County was $26,155, and the median income for a family was $27,853.