Ruben Hinjosa, a member of the House of Representatives from Texas, has filed for personal bankruptcy. A 2.6 million dollar judgment against him appears to be the reason.

Ruben Hinjosa has been a member of the House of Representatives for eight terms. Despite this political time commitment, he has also been involved in a complex myriad of businesses in his private life. Those businesses have now come back to haunt him.

At the core of his bankruptcy filing, Rep Hinjosa is attempting to escape a $2.6 million judgment rendered in an arbitration hearing against him. The judgment arises from a personal loan guarantee he gave on a family meat packing business. Personal guarantees, of course, are just that. You agree to pay the loan in question should the primary borrower fail to do so. Hinjosa has claimed he had no managerial control over the company, but that doesn’t matter with a personal guarantee.

In truth, things could get much worse for Hinjosa than just a bankruptcy. Why? It turns out the primary borrower was a company called H&H Meat Products. It is one of the  biggest employers in Hinjosa’s district. Despite this, he has never listed the debts or any financial relationship with the company on his financial disclosure statements with the House of Representatives. Oops.

Rep Hinjosa is an interesting character. Sadly, he is also pretty much par for the course when it comes to politicians. How so? He has all kinds of financial problems. Not only is he on the hook for this 2.6 million judgment, but more than a few companies he is associated with in Texas have massive tax liens against them. A politician not paying his taxes? How surprising. 

Everybody can run into financial problems. Representative Ruben Hinjosa is certainly not the first politician to do a face plant. That being said, don’t you find it a bit scary someone like this is setting financial policy for our country as a whole? 

I do.