| ► Judge Ben Hardin Texas’ 2010 BMW Judicial Division Winner |
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Judge Ben Hardin Texas’ 2010 BMW Judicial Division Winner
Judge Ben Hardin sits on the 22nd District Court in Angleton, Texas, which is about 40 miles south of Houston. It should be noted that Ben is the only and I mean only Judge out of over 2,000 that has ever had the audacity to bilk his contributors for the cost to drive a luxury BMW.
As you’ll see below, Benny gives arrogance a bad name due to the fact that he actually believes it is acceptable to hose his contributors for the costs to provide him with a BMW for his personal use.
Texas Ethics Laws allows for a public servant to use campaign funds while performing legitimate (provable) government duties and/or for campaigning purposes. However, Ben’s primary use of the BMW gifted to him by his unwitting contributors is for commuting purposes, which constitutes about 40 miles per day from his home in Lake Jackson to the courthouse in Angleton. I’m confident that Ben likely never reported or paid federal income taxes for his personal use of the BMW.
The costs to Ben’s unwitting campaign contributors from June 2000 through June 2010 for a BMW are:
The median household income fin Angleton is $42,184. 1. Annual household expenses for ownership/operation of a vehicle average 17% (source: Bureau of Labor Statistics), which computes to the following:
The above figures prove that Benny’s actual income is over $165,000 when the cost of the BMW is included. Since the Chief Justice of the Texas Supreme Court earns $152,000 a year, this makes Benny the highest paid judge in the state of Texas.
Percentage of Contributions Spent on BMW
Below are the numbers dealing with the amount of campaign contributions that Ben had the chutzpah to spend on a BMW:
Of the 215 individual contributions made to Ben over the years, 16 were for $100. Do y’all think that Ben specifically advised any of these folks that he intended to spend $69 of their contributions to provide himself with a BMW?
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