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A former staffer for Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann’s presidential campaign filed suit Monday against Bachmann and her senior campaign staff, alleging emotional distress and a damaged reputation during the run-up to the Iowa caucuses.
The staffer, Barb Heki, who was the campaign’s Homeschool Coalitions Director, says she was unjustly blamed during a flap last fall over the use of a list of thousands of homeschool families for campaign e-mails. Heki, based in Johnston, Iowa, says she and her husband lost their seats on the board of the Iowa homeschool network "NICHE" shortly afterward.
“The Plaintiffs have been isolated and expelled from their professional, social, political, and spiritual lives and careers, in Iowa and nationally,” said the petition, filed in Polk County District Court in Des Moines.
Heki alleges that Iowa State Sen. Kent Sorenson, then the campaign’s Iowa chairman, took the list from her computer.
Also named in the petition are campaign manager Keith Nahigian and other senior staff, who Heki says were aware of what Sorenson had done but nevertheless allowed her reputation to suffer.
Reached by phone late Sunday, Sorenson denied taking the homeschool list.
“No, I did not,” Sorenson said, adding that he dealt extensively with NICHE in the aftermath to rectify things.
The Bachmann campaign paid NICHE, a 501c3 nonprofit, several thousand dollars in order to keep the group compliant with federal elections law prohibiting political activity.
Nahigian also released a statement on Dec. 1, noting the campaign “regrets any inconvenience this mistake may have caused.”
Nahigian was not available for comment Monday.
In an telephone interview, Heki said her “whole life and reputation was destroyed” by the events. But, she said, she still supports Michele Bachmann’s conservative platform, and she won’t vote for Mitt Romney for president in November.
Bachmann is currently facing a tough reelection fight in Minnesota’s 6th district.
“We need her in Congress,” Heki said.
Bachmann dropped out of the Republican presidential race on Jan. 4, after finishing last among the candidates competing in the Iowa caucuses.
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Bachmann is being sued by a staffer and she is swirling the drain in a reelection bid in her congressional district? It just goes to show people are wising up to the TP's hot air and BS. It's becoming increasingly obvious that Romney will ultimately wind up being a nation-wide laughingstock just as Bachmann has become.
Does't the old bitty have a farm where the old mare can retire. Better yet, Romney must have a glue factory in his vast holdings.
I believe Mitt off-shored his glue factory operations to China in 1998.
Bachmann is uniquely American nonsense. Mitt the Vulture is just as sad a story. GOP has basically abandoned ship in 2012.
Ye reap what Ye sow. Support a back-stabbing, self-serving individual and you are surprised when you are thrown under the (campaign) bus?
Didn't the same things happen with Sarah Palin's staff? Marsha Blackburn should be next. The GOP/TP female politicians are an embarrassment to their gender -- All the Teapublican politicians are a scourge to the human race -- Joe Walsh, Trent Franks, Eric Cantor. They are ALL friggin' insane.
But Batcrap Bachmann takes the blue ribbon along with Marcus, "oh my goodness!"
I am a conservative and all I can say is that most of these home schooling parents are BAT$#!T crazies. A big portion of them are christian science followers who think the earth is only 4000 years old and that Adam and Eve lived in the garden of Eden peacefully side by side with dinosaurs. They reject science and attribute everything to god. I had to sit in a cube at a job next to one of these imbeciles for 3 years. He had an excuse for everything science could prove from Carbon dating was wrong to petrified wood was less than 4000 years old and could be made in only a few hundred years time. The only ones that seem to be normal are the ones who do it because the closest school is hours away.
Who cares? There all bats#it crazy!
Anyone who took a job as a staffer in Bachmann's campaign should not be surprised at the result. Say, I thought GOPers were against frivolous lawsuits and this one sounds frivolous.
davefromdanapoint, nice to read a conservative's view. While there are homeschooling parents who do a great job, it is the ones who base schooling on their religion that are the problem. I have nothing against religion but education must be more than bible-based theology; not everything can or should revolve around faith.
I personally know a mother who will be homeschooling her daughter because of barely controlled type I diabetes. The private preschool the daughter attended was not able to comply with the medical plan in place and my friend is worried that the public school will not be any better able to comply. They are in the process of getting the daughter a diabetes assistance dog in the hopes that they will be able to better control her blood sugar. So ... while most of the people who are homeschooling their children because of religious reasons (my friend isn't Christian) ARE a little off their rockers ... there are plenty of people who are close to schools but need to homeschool for medical reasons.
I am not surprised that Bachmann's staff might have done something like they are being accused of.
All other comments aside, did anyone else notice that Heki is filing a lawsuit against the campaign, but STILL SUPPORTS Bachman? I'll make the observation that it is possible that Heki is potentially even more bat $hit crazy than Bachman. (Of course I'm not entirely convinced that all of Bachman's issues are because of the crazy - I think the woman is willing to say anything to stay in the news / feed the rabidness of the crazies that support her).
If you're gonna support this goofy wingbat, it's a requirement that you be even more clueless than Bleccchmann herself.
good job. She needs to go for help, she is nuts. Why don't her family get her help, she needs it so bad. We talk about things, like we should have seen it, well family this is the time for help. I don't like the women, but get help, before she hurts some one.
Michelle, It couldn't happen to a more deserving "B- t--h" than you!
I was wondering if the good folks up in Bachmann's district were ever going to wake up, maybe its this year now that her campaign for the presidency has exposed her for the lying, misleading, batcrap crazy political hack that she is. She led the fight to lower our credit rating, lied about a 200 million dollar a day trip to India by Obama, which was repeated on air by Rush Limbaugh reporting it in full pants on fire detail, continue to perpetuate the myth that Obama was not a citizen, etc. the list just goes on, she has been cited on 11 occasions for pants on fire misinformation, with representatives of this type is there any wonder that this nation is not recovering from the banking debacle? I mean, good God, they want to allow the banks to go back to business as usual without any safeguards being put back into place, no firewall between commercial and investment banks, and having it all insured by the tax payer. Last October the Fed directed the FDIC to allow Bank of America to move 70 trillion of its uninsured worthless home mortgage derivatives onto their FDIC ledgers, making us, the American tax payer liable for BofA reckless gambling.
This case will play out as it needs to, but why all the opposition to any regulation, to include re-instituting Glass-Stegal?
"Heki said her “whole life and reputation was destroyed” by the events."
Man-up, you and your family are just but one in the thousands of lives affected by the Bachmann religious right hatred... It's sad when you live in a country that declares itself a free nation, but only if you go along with their program...
IMHO Backmann needs a mental evaluation, then some very serious treatment... The woman is dangerious...
They are welcome to eat each other alive as I sit back and enjoy the show.
Homeschool Coalition Director? Bachmann is just the gift that keeps on giving---to Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. Who needs comedy writers when you've got the 2012 GOP?
Seems to me that Ms. Bachmann will sucessfully defend this lawsuit on the grounds of "assumption of the risk". How can anyone who just sees her not know, at first blush, that he is in for some serious trouble if he tries to cast his lot with her?
Nothing's more funny than two religious whack jobs beating each other over the head with their Bibles in a court of law....LOL.....
As soon as Bachmann saw that last name, her Bat Sonar turned on and she started an immediate Muslim witch hunt.
@GT-2021701
That was the funniest line I heard in 3 years. LMMFAO
Exactly Bigpicture. If you sleep with dogs you're gonna get fleas.
and scabies.
hey don't be hatin on dogs! they are not even close to the nasty vile level of Bachman and her minions.
Einstein-3556858
Exactly Bigpicture. If you sleep with dogs you're gonna get fleas.
OK...I'm as perplexed now as is possible...
answer me this then
If one sleeps with dogs tied to the roof of the family station wagon
whadda you gonn get ....?... dead bugs on your face or WHAT ?
....just axin.....
Everything Michelle Bachmann touches is simply odd. Apparently, she represents an upscale area of the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area. I'm told her district is very conservative but not, well, crazy--and that she won the election by a fluke. I'm not surprised that she is having a tough time being re-elected, but honestly, the woman is so strange and completely bizarre that she should be a personal embarrassment to each of her constituents. There is no reason to elect people like Bachmann to public office when surely there are mentally competent, well-educated, conservatives in her district who might be available.
Rather than focus on Voter ID laws, we obviously need to focus on Voter Competency laws, which the affluent would overwhelming fail.
... and that's not even mentioning her "pray the gay away" hubby!
(Not that there's anything wrong with that...)
I'd be glad to see voter competency laws. That would eliminate about 80% of the Democrat base.
Hey, someone's actually here to defend this bloomin' TeaIdiot. Go for it, Colorado-'Man' - we await your keen insight!
@Colorado-Man
Yes 80% of the democatic base and 90% of the republican base who gave us the idiot teapublican congress who doesn't understand the concept of credit and paying your bills for indulging the military-industrialists for 14 years.
ToreDown and Steve - Apparently your comprehension skills would prevent you from voting under the Voter Competency statute that RedDevPS proposed. The Republican base is generally much more competent. rational, and educated than the Democrat base. And we don't froth at the mouth as you Leftists do at every aspect of life that you don't like.
"The Republican base is generally much more competent, rational, and educated than the Democrat base." -Colorado-Man
...and you base this on what, Michelle Bachmann as a shining example? I do notice that institutions of higher learning, investigative reporters, and scientists are heavily left leaning. Personally, I think that makes your statement rather humorous. "Competent?" Probably too subjective to settle here. "Rational?" Hmm... that probably depends on which you think is more "rational": a philosopher, or a theologian. Educated? I'll venture to say there are plenty of high school dropouts voting Republican and Democrat, but it's long been known that colleges are bastions of liberalism, with few exceptions for the religious madrasahs, like Oral Roberts University, and such.
hey Colorado-Man - i'd rather see politician competency laws; but that would eliminate all republican & tea party candidates, now wouldn't it?
@Colorado-Man
Judging from your statement that is not true, its obvious to any progressive that a republican is as mentally constipated as they are anally retentive. Their idea for putting the economy back on track and and saving the middle class? The same failed Friedmanite, trickle down economics that has steadily decreased Americans earning power since the Alzheimer's poster child Ronald Reagan became president. Yeah that's the ticket, let the Wall Street bankers gamble with everybody else's money and have the American public insure them. You're so anti socialist until its time to bail your butts out of hot water. Let's reinstate Glass-Steagall, so the next time the Wall Streeters spin the roulette wheel they can go around dressed in a barrel.
She worked on Bachmann's campaign that in itself damages her reputation.
Michelle Bachmann is an insult to the Congress, an insult to the people of Minnesota, an insult to such great Republicans such as Lincoln, Goldwater, Ike and Reagan, an insult to America, an insult to women around the world and an insult to the human race.
@Charlie-1915998
I second motion every last word you said.
Second of all being associated with Bachmann-crazy campaign in it self is BATSH!T Crazy.
Who would want to through their reputation under the bus for her bug eyed Azz.
But, she said, she still supports Michele Bachmann’s conservative platform, and she won’t vote for Mitt Romney for president in November.
She is obviously a slow learner, like wild eyes, but at least she shows some promise by not voting for the empty suit that bought all the other Republicans.
why was she homeschooled like bachmann
Still scary that Boner put her on the House Intelligence Committee. They handle stuff much more serious than home school mail lists.
hahahaha
Bachman writing that batsh!t letter makes The House Intelligence Committee look the least intelligent.
It's makes them look bat sh!t crazy as well.
Makes you wonder about the intelligence of the republican leadership when they appoint someone like Bachmann to anything more important then a committee overseeing public sanitation.
Please not
Public Sanitation is important!
Bachmann being in Congress is like those tone-deaf shower singers that end up on American Idol...
Getting involved with a nut like Bachmann will do that to you.
That's what anyone who can reasonable think for themselves get for F-IN with her in the first place.
We Told You So..........stupid.
life is like a box of chocolate..forest bachmann
But they knew what they were getting out of that box of chocolates.
Batsh!t chocolates.
So far those that I have met that have been home schooled have been lacking in certain aspects such as THE TRUTH!! I inspected an apartment complex full of religious wingnuts, the lies they were teaching their kids made me worry about the future of America. These kids truly believed the BS the Conservative Bible Project and the Texas Board of Education text books were "teaching" them, and their parents were so busy sticking their noses in everyone else's business that they rarely cleaned their apartments, most were scamming money form some government entity or another and all were breaking the no pet rules (and since they didn't want anyone to know they were breaking the no pet rule they never let their dogs outside to use the fire hydrant, YUCK)
Well, I do know some who homeschool to offer more religion and it really is sad that some of the kids are pretty much only allowed to speak to other kids from the same church and don't learn much of anything else, but to be fair, I also know several in my area who homeschool to escape persecution FROM religion. Yes, I mean in the public schools, and the kids pick on kids who don't believe in God or don't go to a "Christian" enough church. I know two who were so scared to come out of the bathroom for fear of more taunting that they were missing class and ending up seriously depressed and anxious. Oh, and yes, I live in the South. If you aren't Christian here you really do have a lot of challenges, and some kids have parents who won't allow any kids who don't go to a "real Christian church" to play with their kids.
So it does go both ways. The ones I know who homeschool to avoid persecution are intelligent and thoughtful parents who wanted to teach academics instead of subjecting their kids to bullying or more subtle exclusion at public school. They get interaction with plenty of other kids, but as one parent put it, "My daughter can wear her Wiccan necklace without the school making her take it off (despite the fact that many kids wear crosses) or the kids picking on her and calling her names".
I had to add that for balance after your post.
It's really too bad that humans were so insecure that they had to invent religion to comfort the dying and give sense of meaning to life.
The children who are suffering this indoctrination may be permanently damaged by the "good intentions' of their parents...
@Jeff S-487230
It wasn't a matter of being insecure, it was more the matter of humanity trying to make sense of it all without the benefits of any science. The rules of Judaism, the dietary laws, the ten Commandments, were all formulated on observation of the effects that breaking these rules had. Adultery certainly did not lead to social harmony and eating ham led to trichinoisis, so attributing these causal effects to the will of God does make sense when trying to imbue the populace to safeguards that these rules represent. Man is an inquiring creature and in order to understand a principal one must offer a reason, a hypothesis, for it. God was the first principal, and to my mind the arguments for His existence and non-existence are pretty much equal, but organized religion with its dogma and its apriori arguments, will never adequately address that issue. For myself, I choose a Christian path, I do believe that Jesus was the way, his preaching on tolerence and forgiveness, kindness toward the less fortunate, and the responsibility we all have to treat each other with respect shines down the corridor of history and still lights the way to self knowledge.
Steve C
But where did the ban on shellfish come from?
Lots of people are allergic to shellfish, or develop allergies from eating a lot of them, particularly shrimp. Toxic algae blooms routinely make clams, oysters, etc. dangerous to eat all over the world. I could see those pretty easily working their way into lore of the time.
Tex
I am not sure why all the kosher laws are there for, I had a Jewish friend explain a few to me, for instance prohibition of cdrinking milk and eating beef, it produces a mild acid condition in the blood, which is verifiable today through chemistry, but must of been one of the observable conditions that the wisemen of the day noticed.
There is nothing, and I mean NOTHING that pains me more than to see Far Right nutcases falling out and tearing each other to pieces. Oh, the humanity. What hath god wrought? The pain, disappointment and shear heartache is almost too much for me to bear. I must now go and console myself over a bottle of scotch.
All I can say is that if you are STILL willing to vote for someone you are sueing because they damaged your reputation, then either your reputation is real low or you are truly blind to the process of how this person acts.
... or you're also bat$#it crazy... (in your scenario, not you personally, Sense :-)
This article is very interesting. Far Right nutcases failing out and tearing each other to pieces.
Isn't that typical republican, Bachmann cuts her throat and she still supports her. Isn't politics just grand? The only smart thing she said was, I won't vote for Nit Wit Romney. I guess she isn't totally stupid.
OBAMA/BIDEN 2012
She didn't say who she is going to vote for.She'll probably still vote for Bachman.
I enjoyed the posts today. My stomach muscles are torn, is there a doctor in the house. I'm laughing to death.
@gustifer
Actually she's not as smart as you think, she won't vote for Mittsy because he's not batcrap crazy enough for her.
Most homeschoolers kind of scare me. They keep the kids home, not necessarily to educate them, but to brainwash them. They fill them up with all their extremist viewpoints and keep them away from any information or knowledge that might cause them to question the extremist agenda that mom and dad are promoting. I know there are exceptions, but most of the homeschoolers I have known are a bunch of lunatic nut cases teaching everything from snake handling to the rapidly approaching "end times".
yes my mother was one of them kind of people..I turn her in she was raising my sisters child and keep her away from the world..my sister is dead..I tried to get custody but they gave my mother custody..I turn her in every time i seen them outside of the house on school day..but Texas laws protected my mothers rights..she has miss the world ..and is struggling now ..my niece.because of my mother..Texas laws have ruin my niece not education because guess what..she never went to school..I can barley write myself thank god..me and my siblings were put in a home..or none of us 6 kids would have got no education
That's what they want people without an education. For if you have no education you have very little money and your thinking is only one way. Which is what ever they (RWNJ's) tell you.
A sinister way to make uneducated slave fools out of everyone.
Send your kids to one of the greatest institutions ever invented - Public Education. It's not perfect but if you apply yourself you will be great period.
Hopefully Minnesota voters come to their senses, and vote this rather laughable, lightweight whackjob, out of office..
Although, I'll have to admit, ..I HAVE enjoyed the entertainment for the past year....
Thanks michelle...
""Bachmann is currently facing a tough reelection fight in Minnesota’s 6th district.""
I've got a lot of family in Minnesota. I've got to say that the majority of Minnesotans are great people. I don't believe that the people who elected Bachmann really understood what they were getting. That area may be conservative, but they aren't crazy. Now that they have seen what she really is, I'm willing to bet they throw her out on her silly little butt.
There are a lot of intelligent people in that area. I don't understand why they haven't recalled Bachman.
I'm in MN, and I don't know how tough that reelection fight is going to be. She is in a new district due to the census, and if anything, it is MORE conservative. She does have a good opponent, and I hope that sanity returns.
But, I don't hold out much hope.
It must be that in MN all the nutcases gather in that area.
Something about that cold air mummifying their brain cells...
She might still stay in if they are anti Democrat enough to hold their noses as they vote.
Who are these people in that state that keep voting that bat sh*~t crazy woman in office??!!
mike-3048923...you ask, "who are these people..." well my friend, try this on for size:
Nearly eighteen percent of the U.S. population believes that the likenesses of Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt and Lincoln, sculpted on Mt. Rushmore are a result of centuries of earth tremors, wind, rain and erosion.
Accordingly, I find it’s difficult for any nation to progress socially when nearly one-fifth of its members are ignorant, paranoid and disconnected from reality.
She was a director of the "Network of Iowa Christian Homeschool Educators" aka the "Network of Iowa Christian Fundamentalists terrified that anything resembling a decent education will give their children enough capacity to think critically that they will inevitably realize the complete absurdity of biblical literalism and who therefore will go to any lengths to shelter and protect their children from all forms of knowledge, literature, art, and any and all opinions which may in any way vary from the nonsense they wish to indoctrinate their children into."
" Bachmann is currently facing a tough reelection fight in Minnesota’s 6th district "......HAHAHAHAHA.....No Doubt people there didn't know what a LOON she was when she got elected.....BIG SURPRISE......They know NOW !
What gets me is how she "still supports" Bachmann. Her "reputation" as an idiot remains secure.
Not all who choose to home-school their children do so for religious reasons.
In my case, I had volunteered at my daughter's school for a few years. In that time, I made many good friends among the teachers and staff. I saw what they have to contend with, the worst being the arrogant, idiot parents.
As she got older, I saw the atmosphere she would have to deal with. Because I had the ability to be a stay-at-home mom, I chose to home-school. It is amazing what a teacher (mom) can do with just one student. She maintained her friendships from school. Most of them envied her because she didn't have the crap to deal with they had to face.
Over the next few years, we were BOTH able to do a great deal of volunteer work. In that capacity, she learned to work with people of all ages. She didn't have to spend years at a time surrounded by only people her own age. We all know that, in real life, that just doesn't happen.
Today, she is a grown woman. She has a very good job, where she is entrusted with a lot of responsibility. She is valued for her ability to problem-solve and work with the goal of keeping problems to a minimum. She interacts with people of all ages and backgrounds with ease and respect. She is dearly loved by her friends and family.
I am relating this in response to some of the posts that lumped all who home-school into one category. Some home-school in order to cut their children off from the rest of the world. We chose to take the time to go out into our community and live IN the world.
As for the home-school associations, we never got involved with any of them. We were too busy learning and growing (and having fun) to tie ourselves down.
Good for you Butterfly! Homeschooling can produce well rounded mindful citizens when planned and carried out without any dogma attached! Hats off ot you!
Thank you for this post. I homeschooled my oldest child as he was a competitive gymnast. He was also bullied because of it. We removed him from school after the 5th grade. We did not belong to any group, but did go to a few homescholing events. When they seemed too religious we would leave. Every time he went to a new place for a competition, he would spend time exploring it and studying its history. He made a number of friends too. He went to college and now has a great job. My younger son did go to public school and is also doing well and is going to college. He didn't want to homeschool and that was fine with me. There are many ways to educate our children. And yes there are those religious fanatics that are totally crazy, but not all of us are.
I'm really hoping that Romney picks Bachmann for his running mate. It would definitely strengthen his brain trust.
The Republicans have no one running for office including Mitt, we can only hope all AMERICANS when they vote remember where the the bainless was are and not vote them back in. Apparently the REPUBLICANS, did not get brians when they were passed out, they are clueless
Bachman aide sues campaign ? Isn't it embarrasment enough to have worked for Bachman ?
Anybody that supports Bachmann should lose their reputation.