Move on, Manny. We have.

Published September 7th, 2021 at 7:04 am, Last Updated September 7th, 2021 at 2:29 pm

Good morning, it’s Tuesday, September 6, 2021

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News should stop giving Manny free press and start making him answer real questions.

Enough is enough. In a time when there are so many important stories to cover, at The Paper. we made a decision to stop day-to-day coverage of one not-so-important one: Starting today, we will no longer give Sheriff Manny Gonzales free press coverage for his quixotic attempts to receive taxpayer funding for his campaign he admits committed fraud to qualify.

We urge other media outlets to do the same.

Gonzales continues to file for do-over after do-over in front of hearing officers and in the courts. Every time he does, news reports become de-facto campaign ads for his underdog cause. But they also help Gonzales avoid the real questions, like what’s his crime plan? And how does he explain how the county’s crime stats under his anti-crime leadership broke new records last year (violent crime was up 26% under Gonzales last year), just like the city?

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Candidates for public office, including those who seek public financing, deserve reasonable legal remedy to wrongs their campaign suffers. Gonzales broke and continues to break the trust of that social contract. When reports of misconduct, forgery, and violations of the law became public, that was news. When he was denied over $600,000 in taxpayer dollars due to substantiated claims of forgery, that was news. When his campaign was fined $500 for ethics violations by the Board of Ethics, that was news. When the judge ordered the Clerk to create a system of due process and when the Clerk did so and still denied the Sheriff public financing, that was news.

Gonzales has fumbled at almost every step of the public financing process. Calling a foul simply because you’ve lost is reminiscent of the Trumpism he so quickly latched himself to last year. Just like the former president, Manny is stomping his feet, trying to get his way. As we’ve seen on the national level, this posturing is dangerous – especially to the democratic process.

If Gonzales wants to spend these last weeks of this pivotal election throwing legal briefs, that’s his choice. But unless real news is made regarding Gonzales’ campaign, we will not cover his never-ending escapade of appeals. There are more important stories about our community and the election that need telling. Simply being a baby cry is not one of them.

Tierna Unruh-Enos
Associate Publisher and Managing Editor

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