Gay rights bill stalled in Jalisco Congress
The chairman of the legislative committee, Hugo Gaeta of the centrist Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), had submitted a proposal in favor of the Ley de Libre Convivencia, but this was withdrawn at the request of Mariana Arambula of the right-wing National Action Party (PAN) and Roberto Mendoza of the PRI, who sought to further analyze the bill and consider possible changes in light of a forum held on discuss the law on Tuesday.
Any congressional vote will now be postponed until the committee reiterates its support for the bill. Introduced by the leftist Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), the bill would provide same sex-couples with inheritance rights and social security benefits, but would not grant them the right to marry or adopt children.
The bill has already met the approval of the State Congress’ PRI-led Human Development Commission, but was rejected by another PAN-controlled constitutional committee. The Gender Equality Commission controlled by the leftist Citizens Movement has yet to vote on the legislation.
Governor Aristoteles Sandoval backed the bill on Tuesday, declaring, “I am in favor of respecting the individual rights and freedoms of every person to decide who they want to have a relationship with and live under the same roof with.” These rights must be “legally guaranteed,” Sandoval added, although he declined to back gay and lesbian couples’ rights to wed or adopt.
Shootout leaves seven dead in Tepatitlan
One man was arrested and four police officers were injured in the firefight which began just before 4 p.m. and lasted over five hours. The criminals were suspected members of a cell that operated in the Lagos de Moreno area, the Prosecutor General’s Office (FGE) said on Wednesday.
Tepatitlan’s head of public security said the shootout started when gunmen aboard several trucks opened fire on municipal police officers on the east side of town. Pursued by the police, the suspects took cover at a home in the Jardines de Oriente neighborhood.
From there they attacked the police with high-power automatic weapons and fragmentation grenades. The municipal police force requested support from the FGE and in the next few hours more than 200 municipal, state and federal police officers and soldiers were deployed to combat the criminals.
Over 300 students were evacuated from two nearby schools, while neighbors took shelter in their homes throughout the siege.
When darkness fell, the authorities decided to raid the property, El Universal reported. Commander Ruben Landeros, an ex-military officer serving as inspector general of the state police, approached the property along with two other officers aboard an armored car, but they were killed upon dismounting from the vehicle. The firefight then intensified and the criminals were eventually overwhelmed.
“Three of the criminals were killed in the house and another died when he was attended to by paramedics,” Prosecutor General Luis Carlos Najera said. “These people had a lot of firepower,” Najera added, after the authorities recovered nine firearms, including a high-power .50 caliber rifle.
“I respect the memory of the three members of our security forces who fell heroically in the line of duty. Their families are not alone,” Governor Aristoteles Sandoval wrote on Twitter on Wednesday morning.
“Four police officers were injured in the clash, two of them are hospitalized in a stable condition and the other two have shrapnel wounds and were discharged,” the FGE added in a statement.
On Thursday, the FGE identified the sole detainee from the shootout as Jesus Eduardo Rosales Baraja, 33. Rosales served as a municipal police officer in his hometown of Ciudad Guzman from 2001 to 2007 and has since been linked to a number of kidnappings, the FGE stated.
Free-spending Jalisco deputies mired in expenses scandal
On top of a whopping gross salary of 107,235 pesos per month (according to Union Jalisco), deputies also receive a no-strings-attached “legislative budget” of 92,000 pesos per month, which is typically used to rent district offices, cover administrative expenses and pay assistants’ wages.
A recent investigation by Spanish-language daily Milenio found that 37 of the state’s 39 deputies had charged personal items to expenses and only 14 of these provided any proof of purchases.
Among the more unusual expenses listed, male deputy Joaquin Portilla of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) claimed 19 pesos for a pack of tampons (he later claimed this was an error by a member of his office), while Juan Jose Cuevas of the National Action Party (PAN) was reimbursed for having a temple waterproofed for 12,000 pesos. Meanwhile, Trinidad Padilla of the PRI paid an assistant severely inflated wages of 94,700 pesos last November and another 64,200 pesos in December, and Roberto Mendoza, also of the PRI, claimed 104,000 pesos worth of petrol, enough for 8,451 liters of premium fuel.
The only two deputies not to charge expenses were Celia Fausto Lizaola of the leftist Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) and Miguel Castro of the PRI.
“This is not just an administrative matter, it is one of principles and austerity,” Fuasto said after Milenio uncovered her peers’ excessive expenses. Former Tlajomulco Mayor Enrique Alfaro of the Citizens Movement branded the deputies’ actions “a disgrace,” while Castro admitted that deputies should pay back any expenses not related to legislative activity.
The PRI’s national party president Cesar Camacho Quiroz joined the debate on Saturday, vowing to punish anyone responsible for filing fraudulent expenses and insisting that “justice cannot be selective … the PRI will not illegally protect anyone.”
The Tequila Files 