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U.S. representative David Funderburk pleaded no contest to a minor traffic charge in Dunn, North Carolina, in October, even though he denied that he was behind the wheel when his car crossed the center line and caused an oncoming van to veer off the road and overturn. Witnesses said Funderburk drove away after the accident but returned several minutes later in the passenger seat, with his wife driving. (One witness said she actually saw the couple change seats.) Furthermore, in a slipup at a subsequent news conference Mrs. Funderburk described damage to “her” side of the car, the “passenger” side, but then quickly “corrected” herself.
Republican Virginia state delegate Roger J. McClure won reelection in November on a platform of downsizing government, even after news surfaced that he owed $126,000 in back taxes. “I have personally experienced the awesome power of the tax collector and the heavy burden of taxation on businesses and families,” he said, and then promised to continue fighting “against excessive government power and high taxes.”
In February in Madison, Wisconsin, police found cocaine in the underwear of Leonard Hodge, 22, who had been arrested for failing to carry a driver’s license. According to a police spokesperson, Hodge attempted to exculpate himself by saying the underwear he was wearing wasn’t his.
In February a government agency in Modesto, California, announced it would take action against the imperial wizard of the California Ku Klux Klan, Bill Albers, for a February 10 cross burning. The agency is the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District, which plans a civil lawsuit because cross burning violates local air pollution laws.
