The time-honored personification of “chutzpah”–a yiddish word usually translated as “nerve” or “gall”– is “a guy who kills his mother and father and throws himself on the mercy of the court because he’s an orphan.”
I have a better example: Brent Waltz.
Waltz, for those who’ve never heard of him, is the radical Right ideologue who defeated Senate legend Larry Borst in a Republican primary a couple of cycles ago. More recently, he has been in the news for non-ideological reasons: when a business venture he founded went belly-up, it turned out he had failed to make the legally-required payments into the State’s unemployment compensation fund. Whoops! Well, as he explained, these things happen–as a lawmaker, he’d been busy with other, more pressing matters, and well…those pesky legal requirements sort of escaped his notice. (Think he’d be equally nonchalant about Indiana citizens who fail to abide by the rules he is helping to pass at the General Assembly?)
According to a court filing in February, Waltz and his investment company received more than 145,000 from the failed enterprise, while as a result of his “inadvertence,” the workers who lost their jobs when the business closed were unable to collect either the pay they were owed or unemployment benefits.
Now, Waltz and (inexplicably) ISTA have teamed up to promote …wait for it…a new school program in fiscal literacy. I kid you not.
That’s chutzpah.
One good thing that Brent Waltz did was that he voted against the Creation “Science” bill and was opposed to it before the “poison pill” amendment was added. I usually disagree with him but did appreciate his vote on this. I am disappointed that ISTA, and organization to which I have belonged for years and now am a lifetime member of ISTA Retired is supporting him over Mary Ann Sullivan.
I urge all Republicans to support Mary Ann Sullivan for State Senator. Representative Sullivan dutifully followed her fellow Democrats when they walked out of the Legislature. When they came back, however, Rep. Sullivan worked with Republicans to compose local government reform legislation and education reform legislation. Rep. Sullivan is a teacher. The endorsement of Waltz by ISTA is payback to Sullivan for her support of education reform. Rep. Sullivan deserves the Profile in Courage Award.
Waltz, on the other hand, is as bad as they come.
I’d say that it sounds as though Mr. Waltz needs to take the class rather than teach it.
Among other things like outright fraud, it appears Mr. Waltz is quilty of wage theft. Yes there is such a thing and he should be tried for it. What else will we learn about state government? James Payne resigns because of unparalleled arrogance. Waltz walks away from employees for much the same reason – the laws they make or are charged to enforce do not apply to them.