SHOULD CORTEZ BE NEXT TO WITHDRAW FROM BISD RACE?

By Juan Montoya
No one thought that Carlos Elizondo would have the chutzpah to run for reelection for the board of the Brownsville Independent School District in November.

And there were already inklings that Luci Longoria, who filed for a spot on the Position 2 board ballot to "hacerle esquina" a her former board colleague Katy Presas-Garcia, would withdraw within the eight-day period after filing. Longoria has said she will continue supporting Press-Garcia in her race for Position 1.

Yet, even with 11 counts on two indictments charging him with theft, abuse of fiduciary duty, and of breaching the security of emergency system city computers, Elizondo filed for reelection. Already, even his colleagues on the BISD board recoiled when Cesar Lopez, the BISD president, said he was stepping down as board president and, by protocol, Elizondo was next in line fof the board's top spot.

Cooler heads prevailed and Lopez was talked into not resigning because no one at the district wanted to bear the onus of having an indicted defendant represent the district as president.

Well, apparently Mark Anthony Cortez, the son of JP 2-1 Linda Salazar, is not letting reports that on at least four times his mommy refused to recuse herself from sitting on cases involving him, and handing out dismissals and token fines ($20).

In one case which is still pending in her court, she has sat on a petition by a collections company to make Mark fork over the more than $2,300 debt he owned to Walmart through a credit card. That case landed on Linda Salazar's desk last April and remains there, even after the company sought a default judgment when Cortez failed to answer their petition in court.

Now we hear that the company's attorneys have been informed of the relationship between the defendant and the judge on the case.

And while Linda introduced Mark to her Facebook followers , her other son, Ruben Cortez, is running for reelection on the State Board Of Education (SBOE) against City of Brownsville IT Specialist Tad Hasse. Cortez served previously as a board member at BISD.

These type of activities involving relatives by a judicial officer goes against every precept of fairness and impartiality. In fact, judicial canons are quite specific on the practice. The specific prohibition against this is embedded in the Texas Constitution.

THE TEXAS CONSTITUTION

ARTICLE 5. JUDICIAL DEPARTMENT

Sec. 11. DISQUALIFICATION OF JUDGES; EXCHANGE OF DISTRICTS; HOLDING COURT FOR OTHER JUDGES. No judge shall sit in any case wherein the judge may be interested, or where either of the parties may be connected with the judge, either by affinity or consanguinity, within such a degree as may be prescribed by law, or when the judge shall have been counsel in the case.

Texas Code of Judicial Conduct

B. A judge shall not allow any relationship to influence judicial conduct or judgment. A judge shall not lend the prestige of judicial office to advance the private interests of the judge or others; nor shall a judge convey or permit others to convey the impression that they are in a special position to influence the judge.

In each case, the docket sheet notes that the cases were dismissed by the state (Cameron County District Attorney's Office), and once at Salazar's discretion after Cortez appeared to have complied with the law and replaced his expired license/registration on his car. She charged him a token $20 for court costs and that was it. That's her signature on the bottom.

In Case 2011-FTR-008037, Mark Anthony was charged with having an unrestrained child in his car and on a companion case 2011-FTR-00838, was charged himself for not wearing a safety belt. Both, as the docket sheet notes, were dismissed on a motion by the state. Salazar also signed off on them. We seriously doubt that the state attorneys realized the defendant was Salazar's son.

In yet another case, 2017-FTR-00468, he was charged with displaying the expired license sticker and got off with the $20 fine for court costs.

And there is that other case pending in Salazar's court involving Mark Anthony (2018-FDC-00525), this one involving an unpaid $2,335.61 since February 7, 2017 on a Walmart credit card. That account was sold to Midland Funding who then sued for collection. That lawsuit ended at Linda's court since April 2018 and remains pending.

And this mother-son duo expects the BISD voters to turn  blind eye to this unethical behavior and place Anthony in a policy-making position when it is clear that following policy means nothing to either one?