Marlene Gonzalez Uses Courts to Silence Campaign Criticism

Judicial candidate Marlene Gonzalez is apparently trying to use the legal system to silence criticism. Over the weekend Gonzalez sent out an email to people indicating that she has had to "hire counsel to represent me and take all available legal and professional action against her to set the record straight..." and later in the same email says "To that end, in recent days, I have filed... a “Petition Requesting Deposition to Investigate Potential Claims or Lawsuit” to explore the possibility of a lawsuit... for defamation."

In other words, she can't figure out what to sue for, but wants to sue for something - and she wants a court to help her figure it out. 

Gonzalez is upset about some email that was sent to precinct chairs and other people about her campaign or campaign supporters allegedly setting up a facebook page that is pretty nasty toward her opponent Judge Laura Strathmann. That Facebook page makes some pretty serious allegations about Strathmann's sexuality, uses her image, and makes the allegations in the first-person (as though they are written by Strathmann). 

And in a very clear effort to try to intimidate and silence me, Gonzalez has chosen to include me in her effort to use the legal system to that end. 

I'll get back to that in a minute. 

From my conversations with attorneys around town, there has long been a perception among lawyers (particularly among family lawyers) that Marlene Gonzalez doesn't have the right temperament to be a judge. In fact several attorneys have told me that "Marlene Gonzalez is vindictive" and that "you should watch your back, she'll come after you."

Which apparently she's now attempting to. 

These warnings came after I wrote about a couple of situations relating to Gonzalez's campaign. 

I get it, Gonzalez obviously feels uncomfortable about the fact that I wrote the truth about a couple situations that she would rather you not know about, like the fact that she used a group of Mexican-Americans that were in a religious drug treatment program as day laborers for her campaign. 

She made a financial contribution from her campaign account to the church / treatment facility where they live and then the residents of the facility were allegedly told they had to work for her campaign at the early voting locations. That is a first-hand account of what one of the workers told me. That was an unsolicited conversation. Here is video of the organizations church-owned van dropping off their residents at the early voting locations. 

Obviously that creates a lot of legal issues for that organization because its very clearly an example of a non-profit organization taking an active role in overtly political activity - that not only jeopardize the non--profit status of the organization, but also compromises Marlene Gonzalez's position.

Marlene Gonzalez is the self-described "front-runner" of the election. In all my years of covering local politics in this town, I've never heard a candidate refer to themselves as the "front-runner".

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Intimidation Tactics

I've lost track of how many times people have tried to silence me, push me around, get me to write something, get me to retract something, etc. 

You name it, everyone from business people to electeds, to lawyers, campaign supporters, Gandaras, and candidates - they've all tried to get a piece of me at one point or another. 

Its usually your typical notorious political bad actors - Theresa Caballero, Norma Chavez, the Gandaras, Chente Quintanilla - and a few more. 

Hell, I've been an agenda item in two different municipalities in El Paso County. 

I've survived whatever has been thrown at me over the last 15 or so years. I'm not going anywhere. 

So it was somewhat surprising that Marlene Gonzalez would file a lawsuit against her opponent, incumbent Judge Laura Strathmann and then include an effort to depose me. Except its not actually a lawsuit that she's filing. She filed paperwork to ask a judge to order depositions to SEE if she has any grounds to sue Strathmann. 

In reality its just a thinly veiled effort to try to intimidate me. And none of that is surprising if you have even paid the slightest attention to Gonzalez on the campaign trail. 

Here's the bottom line about the legal action taken by Gonzalez - she's fishing around to see if there is someway to sue someone because she doesn't like the information that has come out about her. Now I can't honestly tell you why Gonzalez is more concerned about who owns the Facebook page in question. 

Maybe its this guy Troy Brown's way of trying to deflect from the substance of what is in that Facebook page. Any reasonable person who sees the Facebook page that has content that is campaign material of Ms Gonzalez, would conclude that the Facebook page is affiliated with Gonzalez' campaign. In fact, I'd argue that the content of the page is such that its of a political benefit to Gonzalez - to the point that her campaign material is used on the page - that it should be reported as an in-kind contribution on her finance report. 

Troy Brown wants you to forget that the page made an attack against a member of the judiciary by alleging she has slept around. Its 2020 and women are still subjected to this kind of attack not only in the workplace, but in politics - and that is shameful. 

But no amount of frivolous petitions is going to change the fundamental fact that Gonzalez is a flawed candidate. Now even though its 2020, people are still using the term "illegal alien" - but they are usually wearing a red MAGA hat and have a confederate flag somewhere on or in their vehicle. 

But someone who wants to be a judge - in a town that is over 80% raza? No, that's just something that shouldn't be overlooked. Especially because even though Gonzalez is Puerto Rican, she should still know how offensive it is to us. 

Actually now that I think about it...it might not be all that surprising at all if you take a look at Marlene Gonzalez's social media posts. 

My friend Ouisa Davis posted an article about something that is pretty long-over due. If I told you what Marlene said, you would not believe it because you wouldn't believe that a woman of color - a learnéd Latina to top it all off - would ask what she asked on the post. 

So I'll just show you:

I know, right?

Don't worry, someone called her out on it...

Now if Gonzalez genuinely wants to "set the record straight" as she says - then she should explain why its 2020 and she's calling Mexican grandmothers "illegal aliens". 

At some point you have to ask yourself - is a lawyer who thinks the justice system exists for her to settle scores or intimidate people someone who should be wearing that black robe and making decisions for El Paso families?

Does a community that is made up of over 80% raza really need someone on the bench who refers to a Mexican grandmother as an "illegal alien"?

To me, the answer is very clearly NO to both questions.