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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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Bachman needs replaced. She's an insult to her State and to our Country. Donate to her challenger.
6448092...God is not a FACT. Can we please follow universally agreed upon rules of debate by limiting our discusion to FACTS. If you require the aid of silent, invisible ghosts who obediently follow your command and allow you to speak in their behalf to make a point, you are not contributing anything tangible. You are interjecting mythp;ogy and superstition, neither of which are permissable in a court of law or in an exchange of ideas. What you think and believe carries no weight in a material world where FACTS trump FICTION and FANTASY.
Michelle Bachmann is about as "patriotic" as Senator McCarthy was back during the Commie-Witch-Hunt.
When the IQ goes down, the religious ferver goes up. The higher the IQ, the less likely it is that a person is wearing faith on the shirt sleeves.
Isn't there an "impersonating a sane person" charge lurking about somewhere?
We need Bachman in Congress like she needs more air in her head.... What is her PSI max, I wonder?
Okay, I stopped reading when I got to this quote by Colorodo Man -
"...The Republican base is generally much more competent. rational, and educated than the Democrat base..."
Apparently Mr. Man does not read the peer reviewed scientific publication, Social Psychology Quarterly, in which a March 2010 study titled Why Liberals and Atheists Are More Intelligent clearly shows exactly the opposite of this claim. More intelligent people are, in fact, statistically significantly more likely to be, according to this study, liberal and atheist. Not that it should come as any surprise that a man who claims that people who don't think like him are stupid, but Colorodo-Man appears to be making a wild assumption based on what he would like to be reality, which, unfortunately for him, is exactly the opposite of actual reality.
Doesn't anyone read and comprehend the article?
Heki used a private mailing list to solicite donations and votes. When found out she was fired. The donations were returned. Read people read...
That doesn't make Bachman any less insane...
Funny, I didn't read anything in the article about her being insane...
@yank
Just read some of her comments over the last couple years.
They didn't need to mention it. She's batsh!t crazy and everyone, including the rest of the GOP knows it.
Gee, why sue? The angry person should simply home school herself for a week, grant herself an MBA and get a job on Wall Street. She can't be any worse than the grads running place for the last twenty years.
The woman in question lost her reputation from being on bachmann's campaign staff, would you invite her over for coffee? I think the goofy bachmann, would have been too tame for Joe McCarthy, more like neo-talibaner in charge in line with d. issa. Amazing what can get elected.
Obama 2012
The punishement for Bachman should be put Depends on her, strap her to the roof of a car for twelve hours, and then cut off her hair. Hey, it worked for Romney!
I can sympathize with Mz. Heike and other deluded fools who support Bachmann. I am from Pennsylvania and it took us two terms before we realized what a mess Rick Santorum was making. We finally saw the light, however, and dumped that fool by one of the largest margins ever. Here's to the chance that Bachmann gets the same treatment.
I always enjoy reading all the comments that the left wing idiots leave on these pages.I would vouchsafe that the writings here are a great compulation of sideration,but then that is what the liberals are noted for.
pig, you invite bachmann over for coffee, you don't remember bachman basically calling John Murtha, a much decorated for valor Veteran a coward, during a speech to the full House of Representatives and that was just the beginning of her rants and accusations. The latest nonsense, is Hilliary Clinton's aide, accused of Muslim Brotherhood ties, meanwhile she's, aide, married to Anthony Weiner, a Jew. The woman is certifiable and dangerous.
Compaared to Franks,Waters,Reed,Plosie(need I go on) Bachmann is a genius.As far as Murtha's war record,I can not comment as I have not looked into the details but as far as his politics I was unimpressed
like I said, white trash fighting white trash, now go back to your trailer
That's what you get when you work for the "Sorceress of Evil" Michell Bachmann...
Let it roll Michele, down the highway.
Conservatives in Bachmann's district: If you are interested in regaining credibility and respect among rational people of all political leanings, vote this vicious, dim bulb woman out of office.
white trash fighting white trash, The republicans thought they could co-opt the right wing christian taliban and tea party and ended up being co-opted. When you have unemployment like we have and a stagnant economy and frankly a dissapointment as a president winning the election should be a slam dunk but they will blow it.
^^^^LMBO Rep. Michele Bachmann makes women for the GOP look dumb!
they continue to eat their own