Blake Farenthold May Have Been Hired Illegally At His New Lobbyist Job

[douglas9]

WASHINGTON ― Disgraced former Rep. Blake Farenthold (R-Texas) may have been hired illegally at his new job at a Texas port authority, and a local newspaper on Monday filed a lawsuit that could result in his being ejected.

Farenthold, who abruptly resigned from Congress last month while under investigation for sexual harassment, announced last week that he landed a gig as a lobbyist for the Calhoun Port Authority in Port Lavaca, Texas.

The problem is that the local government entity did not give public notice that it was hiring Farenthold or that it was creating a job for him that pays $160,000 a year. Under the Texas Open Meetings Act, public entities must give notice of actions being taken at upcoming meetings and allow for public comment. The port did give notice of its May 9 meeting, after which Farenthold was hired, but it used vague language about personnel matters.

“They didn’t even talk about the fact that they were hiring a lobbyist, much less that it was Blake Farenthold,” said Joe Larsen, a Houston-based attorney who serves on the board of directors for the Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas. “Specificity has to match the level of public interest.”

The Victoria Advocate, a local Texas newspaper, filed a lawsuit with the Calhoun County district court on Monday arguing that the port violated state law and demanding that the law be upheld.


https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/blake-farenthold-lobbyist-job-sexual-harassment_us_5b02f6bae4b07309e05af5e6

[TexasTowelie]

1. Here is the article from the Victoria Advocate:

https://www.victoriaadvocate.com/news/advocate-files-lawsuit-against-calhoun-port-in-farenthold-hiring/article_05c00f7e-5d29-11e8-bbe5-07ef565f4b19.html

[roscoeroscoe]

2. Screw this clown

Pajamas!

[Gothmog]

3. There will be litigation on this

[Paladin]

4. Farenthold ought to go back to his prior job: AM hate radio.

The brain-dead trump jerks will need somebody else to listen to before long....God willing.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

5. Advocate files lawsuit against Calhoun port in Farenthold hiring

David Fahrenthold Retweeted: https://twitter.com/Fahrenthold

Advocate files lawsuit against Calhoun port in Farenthold hiring

Link to tweet

Advocate files lawsuit against Calhoun port in Farenthold hiring

By Jon Wilcox | [e-mail] May 21, 2018 Updated 10 hrs ago

The Victoria Advocate filed a lawsuit Monday asserting the Calhoun Port Authority broke the Texas open meetings law in hiring former Congressman Blake Farenthold as a lobbyist.

“Few rights of the public are as important as the right to knowledge about how their government spends taxpayer funds and manages the public’s business. This suit is to vindicate those rights and reaffirm ... that sunshine is indeed the best disinfectant,” according to the lawsuit filed by the newspaper’s attorney, John Griffin, of Victoria.

The suit comes almost two weeks after a May 9 public meeting in which the port authority’s executive director, Charles Hausmann, and board members discussed Farenthold’s hiring.

Also Monday, port authority officials issued a special meeting notice for Thursday to deliberate in closed session the employment of the former congressman. Unlike the May 9 notice, this one names Farenthold.
....

Jon Wilcox reports on courts for the Victoria Advocate. He may be reached [e-mail] or 361-580-6515.