janbtucker.com Blog

April 3, 2011

(deleted: Official of the California Democratic Party)

Dear XXXX:

I wanted to give you a heads up about some turmoil that is brewing in the California Democratic Party.

Michelle S. “Mickie” Luna, presently chair of the Chicano/Latino Caucus of the Democratic Party, uses as her claim to fame her having been a four-term State Director of the California League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC). Since her term ended, she has been nothing but trouble for her successors (because she is a consummate control freak).

Most recently and of perhaps most concern for the Democratic Party as an institution, within internal LULAC politics, Ms. Luna has thrown in hot lot with attempted takeover efforts by the Republican Party of LULAC nationally and within California.

Before I get to this most recent escapade, some history is important to recount. Throughout her entire tenure as “State Director” of California LULAC, she hid the fact that the corporate status of the organization had been suspended by the California Franchise Tax Board. She made no effort whatsoever to bring the organization into compliance and so therefore, her legal claim to have been State Director of an organization that was doing business unlawfully in California is at best, dubious.

After Angel Luevano was elected as her successor (I met him at the convention in which he was elected when I was on a workshop discussing civil rights), in violation of the LULAC National Constitution, Luna failed to provide him with the books and records of the organization until months after the election (the constitution requires that they be turned over forthwith). She also maintained control over the checking account and when she finally turned over that control, the account had been virtually cleaned out of the thousands of dollars that had been in it immediately after Angel Luevano’s ascendancy to the State Directorship. At my suggestion, Angel authorized me to check out the corporate status to make sure that LULAC didn’t miss any filing deadlines while he repeatedly attempted to get the books out of Luna.

To our astonishment, I found out that California LULAC had been a suspended corporation since 1958! Luna apparently knew this too, and hid the fact, because it turned out that she had been routing (laundering?) money through a separate 501(c)(3) to pay for all major expenses of the organization. Following this revelation, we were able to successfully get LULAC back into good standing in California.

To cover up her malfeasance, Luna and her allies orchestrated a purported audit which conveniently whitewashed her administration and excoriated Angel Luevano’s purported “corruption,” a finding that National LULAC later decided there was no basis for (and I mean absolutely NO evidence, not even a scintilla).

Fast forward to the past year. In state after state, LUNA allies in the national LULAC administration threw in their lot with the government of Puerto Rico, which is controlled by the USA Republican Party allied New Progressive Party. The government of Puerto Rico required civil servants to create LULAC councils in virtually every government agency. The government paid their dues and chartering fees; elected hundreds of delegates to the LULAC national convention in Albuquerque, and paid for their flights, room and board, and all other travel expenses. These expenditures are now the subject of an FBI investigation.

State by state, this cabal sought to disrupt, discredit, and remove from delegate status and officer roles, persons allied to Jaime Martinez, who was the progressive candidate for the LULAC national presidency. Jaime came out of a career culminating in being the first Latino Vice President of the International Union of Electrical Workers and was a longtime ally and colleague of Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta.

In California, Luna and her allies utilized a corporate check to purchase 40 delegate fees for newly formed councils, two of whom didn’t even have council number as required (because they had never been chartered). After these forty delegates voted as a bloc for the slate that Luna was backing, a stop payment was put on the check. That bit of fraud and malfeasance is the subject of Los Angeles Superior Court Case No. BC 441643, Luevano vs Diaz et al, in which all but one (who is hiding from process service) of the defendants, including National LULAC itself and its attorney (sued personally for libel), have defaulted (the court is currently reviewing the prove up documents submitted for judgment).

I have been apprised that Luna has now orchestrated a purported amendment to the bylaws of the California Democratic Party’s Chicano/Latino caucus which allegedly has eliminated the term limit so that she can try to hang onto her position. Requests to see the minutes where this bylaw change was purportedly voted on have gone unheeded.

Officers of the California Democratic Party should intervene in this matter if for no other reason, than to discharge their fiduciary duties to the membership to insure that there is no hanky panky going on with the finances of the caucus, not to mention that the basic rights to democratic due process should be respected. The implications of having an ally of the Puerto Rican pro-Republican government in the midst of such a critical caucus are to say the least, equally scary.

With kindest personal regards, I remain,

Very truly yours,

Jan B. Tucker