Esparza in Office Too Long

On Wednesday, April 11, 2007 the message on my billboard on I-10 was changed. Changing the billboard costs money. With the help of donations I have recently received, that cost was easily covered. The first billboard which went up in February, was in blue with the logo, "Justice and Reform/Caballero for DA" and my picture. The new billboard is a fiery brick color with the Logo "IT'S TIME FOR A CHANGE/CABALLERO (D) FOR DISTRICT ATTORNEY 2008." For those readers who do not know, my opponent, Jaime Esparza, has been in office since 1993, that would be 14 very long years. On top of that, he has never been challenged. It is indeed time for a change.

Esparza ran against the sitting district attorney who had been in office 26 years. One of Esparza's unfulfilled campaign platforms was that he would seek no more than two terms. A term is four years. That promise was 14 years and four terms ago. Now that he is seeking a fifth, and the chance to be in office for 20 years, the question becomes why? Answer. "Power Corrupts and Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutley."

I spent some time talking to people yesterday about the campaign and one individual asked why I would not want to serve more than two terms if I were to be elected. He asked what I would do if I weren't finished doing the things I wanted to do at the end of a second term. I explained that one is never done working so that should never be a reason to stay. In life, there is always more to do, one more thing to see through, one more thing to touch up. What is more important is to get in, do a great job, get reform going and embedded and then bow out handing the baton to the next person. After having endured the last 14 years of the same harmful regime, it is of the utmost importance to set an example for the community so that we never again tolerate someone serving term after term going unchecked and increasing his power to the detriment of the People.

When George Washington, who was greatly loved by many different factions, reached the end of his second term, the People wanted him to run again but he said no. He was so beloved that there was even talk of making him KING. It takes a strong man to turn his back on that offer. But again he said no and to make his position on the matter abundantly clear and to point out the dangers of someone being King for life either by birth or by virtue of his just never leaving office, President Washington further stated that no man should serve more than two terms and then he stepped down and tended to his farm. This became the unwritten custom in the United States followed by every single president until Franklin Delano Roosevelt who died in his fourth term. After that, Congress, seeing the danger of someone serving term after term, then made it law that no one could serve more than two terms.

This is what we should demand of our politicians. And as we can see, my opponent's administration is an example of what happens when someone is given unbridled, unlimited, and unchallenged power. His administration has been riddled with scandal, corruption, bad judgement, poor ethics (I will be bringing you examples of this next week) a lowering of the bar for the practice of law, innocent people losing their freedom, righteous cases going uninvestigated and unprosecuted, rank and file employees at the DA's office getting salary freezes while Esparza's personal secretary, Amy Lujan, gets pay increase after pay supplement year after year and then the worst act yet, the systematic stripping down of our CONSTITUTION because Esparza thinks that that makes things "more efficient" (DIMS). We have reached the end of our road with Mr. Esparza. He has stayed too long. And the longer he stays the worse he gets and the more entitled he feels to do what he does. And entitled is what he indeed feels after all of these years in office. We are exhausted by him and tired of him. I am hearing this from the community everywhere I go, as I talk to different groups. Everyone who knows how long Esparza has been in office says, "It's time for a change" and so it was you who collectively gave me my logo for the new billboard.

Spread the word as to how long Esparza has been in office (14 years to date, 16 at the end of this term and 20 if he beats me in the election) and how we need to sweep the office clean of the bad and let good take root again. Someone might want to tell Esparza and his friends (and they have prospered under Esparza's rule) that as a nation we did away with the notion of "leaders for life" when we rose up against the king and declared our independence. Has Esparza forgotten that despite his self sense of entitlement, being District Attorney is not a hereditary TITLE and El Paso is not his private fiefdom?