Former congressman Blake Farenthold resigned his seat in the House just last month amid a sexual harassment scandal, but now the Texas Republican is already caught up in another controversy that could also cost him his new job, USA Today informs.
Farenthold resigned from Congress after media reports revealed he used $84,000 in taxpayer funds to settle a sexual harassment claim by Lauren Greene, a former staffer who said Farenthold made inappropriate comments about her.
During a radio interview last week, he announced that he had landed a position lobbying his former colleagues in Congress on behalf of the Calhoun Port Authority in Port Lavaca, Texas. However, there is a problem with Farenthold’s new job, which the Corpus ChristiCaller-Times reported would pay the former lawmaker $160,000 a year. Farenthold will act as a full-time legislative liaison working to secure approval for the port’s expansion, the state agency told the Caller-Times in a statement.
According to USA Today, the Victoria Advocate filed a lawsuit Monday claiming the Calhoun Port Authority broke the law when it hired Farenthold because it did not properly notify the public of his hiring. The lawsuit now aims to void Farenthold’s hiring. “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,” reads the lawsuit filed by Advocate attorney John Griffin.
The lawsuit also notes that given Farenthold’s “current notoriety,” the nature of the position and the amount of his salary, his hiring was of “special interest to the public”, and under the Texas Open Meetings Act, public agencies like the port authority must give notice of actions taking place at meetings and allow for public comment.
A notice was posted for the May 9 meeting where the decision was made to hire Farenthold, but the Advocate claims in the statement that there would be a discussion about “the appointment, employment, compensation, evaluation, reassignment, duties, discipline or dismissal of a public officer or employee” was too vague, USA Today writes.
“The more significant the issue or person, the more detail that’s required in the notice, and this notice was a boilerplate, generic notice not unlike notices for any other meeting. It didn’t alert the public in any way,” Griffin said.
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