XPost: talk.politics.guns, alt.politics.elections, alt.abortion   
   XPost: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh   
   From: slimeballs@clintonfoundation.org   
      
   In article    
    wrote:   
      
   MENTONE, Texas — One of the worst-kept secrets in Loving County   
   sits along the shoulder of a desolate stretch of state highway   
   in the heart of the Permian Basin.   
      
   It’s a sprawling ranch with a sunbaked adobe home that the Pecos   
   River flooded out years ago, nestled near a trailer and a mobile   
   home on stilts, all behind a padlocked gate.   
      
   Eleven people are registered to vote at this address. One of   
   them is Loving County Commissioner Ysidro Renteria, who has been   
   in office since 2011 and listed this property in December as his   
   permanent address on his application to run for re-election,   
   signed under oath. He and at least three relatives used the   
   address to vote in the March primaries.   
      
   The secret?   
      
   “No one lives there,” Loving County Sheriff Chris Busse, who   
   also serves as the registrar of voters, said in May. “I can   
   attest that I’ve been here since 2008 and there has never, ever,   
   ever been any of the Renterias — not even Ysidro — occupying it.”   
      
   The old Renteria farmhouse is hardly the only open secret in   
   this county, the least populated in the continental U.S. Voter   
   registration has been suspiciously high for generations, driven   
   by bitter feuds among a handful of prominent families fighting   
   for control of the local government. The voter registration roll   
   is 97 people long, according to the Texas secretary of state,   
   but the U.S. Census Bureau estimates only 57 people live here.   
      
   Elections often come down to tiny margins, but the stakes are   
   high: Winners are awarded sway over an outsized budget. This   
   roughly 670-square-mile patch of desert sits atop some of the   
   richest oil and gas reserves in the U.S., generating a tax base   
   that has hovered around $7 billion to $9 billion. Salaries for   
   top elected officials are in the six figures. They steer an   
   annual budget of more than $28 million.   
      
   Renteria and his family have benefited from Loving County   
   taxpayers. Renteria earns about $55,000 a year for the part-time   
   job of commissioner. His half-brother and nephew’s trucking   
   company has earned more than $4.7 million doing road maintenance   
   for Loving County since 2015, county payment records show.   
      
   Loving County’s long history of rancorous politics has generated   
   allegations of voter fraud dating to the 1940s, but a new state   
   law and frustrated local officials have put the county’s out-of-   
   town voters in the crosshairs. Renteria is now under   
   investigation by the state attorney general’s office. A justice   
   of the peace recently ordered him and three other people who   
   showed up for jury duty hauled off to jail for allegedly not   
   living in the county.   
      
   Renteria, the descendant of a longtime farming family, owns a   
   ranch with a 2,500-square-foot home in neighboring Reeves   
   County, about a half-hour drive away. Since at least 2011, when   
   he became a commissioner in Loving County, he has claimed a   
   homestead exemption on the home in Reeves County — a tax break   
   afforded to Texas taxpayers on their “principal residences,”   
   records show.   
      
   Texas election code requires candidates for commissioner to   
   continuously reside in the county they plan to represent for at   
   least six months before they file to run for office.   
   Applications are submitted under oath, with the possible penalty   
   of perjury.   
      
   The sheriff said someone (not him) filed a complaint with the   
   Texas attorney general’s office saying Renteria doesn’t live in   
   Loving County. NBC News filed a public information request   
   seeking a copy of the complaint from the attorney general’s   
   office, but officials withheld it, citing “an active criminal   
   investigation being conducted by the OAG’s Criminal   
   Investigations Division.”   
      
   Renteria, 61, declined to speak with a reporter and didn’t   
   respond to written questions. His lawyer didn’t return phone   
   calls.   
      
   For generations, descendants of politically powerful families   
   have cast their ballots here, despite having moved away decades   
   ago in search of other opportunities. They have chased their   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
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