EDINBURG, Texas - Ruben Ramirez, an attorney by profession, said a federal judge’s admonishment of him should not be enough to stop voters from backing him in the Congressional District 15 race.
Ramirez is running for the open CD 15 seat in the Democratic Party primary.
Last year, representing Pharr resident Lorena Singh, Ramirez persuaded a state district judge to sign a temporary restraining order (TRO) to stop the city of Pharr from acquiring the assets of Hidalgo County EMS during a bankruptcy auction.
The restraining order threatened to scuttle the sale and disrupt ambulance service, reported journalist Dave Hendricks for the Mission Progress Times last April.
“The bankruptcy mentality is you pick up the phone and you ask before you sneak down to state court and get a $100 TRO,” said U.S. Bankruptcy Judge David R. Jones, when the case was heard in a federal court in Corpus Christi.
Jones is the chief judge of the U.S. bankruptcy court in the southern district of Texas. He was appointed to the court on September 30, 2011, and became the court's chief judge in 2015.
Attorney Nathaniel Peter Holzer of Corpus Christi represented Hidalgo County EMS. Holzer said Singh, and by extension her attorney Ramirez, was simply wrong on the facts and wrong on the law.
Judge Jones agreed. “Attorneys familiar with federal bankruptcy court would know better than to request a temporary restraining order from a state court, Jones said, adding that he would assume Ramirez simply didn’t know how the process worked,” Hendricks reported for the Progress Times.
If a seasoned bankruptcy attorney like Holzer had attempted such a maneuver, Jones said he would have responded in a different manner, Hendricks reported.
“Let’s assume that Mr. Holzer had filed the lawsuit that you filed. Mr. Holzer would be in my courtroom today and there would be a United States marshal with a set of handcuffs standing right by him,” the Progress Times reported Jones as saying. “I’m going to assume that you (Ramirez) simply aren’t familiar with all of the rules and all of the applicable bankruptcy issues and my jurisdiction and that sort of thing.”
The bankruptcy process is transparent, Jones said, and anyone with concerns may file an objection, the Progress Times story stated.
“There are a number of ways to go about this in order to have your client’s rights and arguments both heard and vindicated, one way or the other,” Jones said. “But doing what you did is not the right way to do it.”
Asked by the Rio Grande Guardian if voters should take notice of the admonishment by Judge Jones, Ramirez (pictured above) said: “No, none whatsoever. Listen, as an attorney I was retained. I was retained for this. I took a look at it and I realized that, hey, there might be some merit there. It is no different than anybody else (an attorney) taking on some sort of case for a criminal defendant or anything else. It does not make them guilty of that.”
Ramirez said the decision to take the case, to seek a TRO, and try to stop the city of Pharr from acquiring the assets of the ambulance firm, did not reflect badly on his character.
“I respectfully disagree with the judge’s version of what happened but that has no bearing in this particular instance. It is what it is. He (Judge Jones) made the decision. Sometimes we agree with it, sometimes we don’t agree with it. In this case, I don’t agree with it but, at the end of the day, we still respect it because that is the rule of law, that is what the court’s are made for. And that is where we are.”
When solvent, Hidalgo County EMS provided ambulance services to Edinburg, Pharr and rural parts of South Texas. When Hidalgo County EMS went bankrupt, owing $2.6 million to the IRS, the city of Pharr swooped in to acquire its assets. The city of Pharr’s ambulance services have now been extended to a number of smaller cities in Hidalgo County.
Asked if the ambulance firm is now in the wrong hands, Ramirez said: “I won’t necessarily speak to that aspect of it but that was for the Pharr citizens to be able to decide. I am all about transparency. But, again, I felt it was a case that potentially had merit. I was retained on it, right? The judge made his ruling. I respect the judge’s ruling even though I don’t agree with it. That is America.”
Pharr resident Singh is a social worker who ran an unsuccessful campaign for Pharr City Commission in 2019. Singh argued there were conflicts of interest in Pharr’s bid for Hidalgo County EMS and that secrecy had marred the sale process. So, through her attorney Ramirez, she filed a lawsuit. The TRO was signed by state District Judge Roberto “Bobby” Flores.
The Progress Times reported that Hidalgo County EMS had “constant problems with cash flow” and hadn’t filed tax returns. After filing for protection under the bankruptcy laws, Hidalgo County EMS was supposed to devise a reorganization plan to restructure the company. That never happened and its chief restructuring officer recommended finding a buyer. The city of Pharr filed the only bid for its assets.
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