For Chaudhary, the hits just keep on coming

Satveer Chaudhary has had a very bad couple of months and it doesn't look to be getting better for him anytime soon. From today's Pioneer Press:

The Minnesota state senator who pushed through last-minute legislation for Fish Lake that contributed to the governor's veto of a major fish and game bill is the subject of a federal tax lien for $252,000 in past-due income taxes, the News Tribune has learned.

Sen. Satveer Chaudhary, DFL-Fridley, and his wife, Denise, failed to pay $100,000 in income taxes in 2007 and $151,000 in 2008, according to tax records.

Ouch. That's quite the tax hit. Here is Chaudhary's attempt at an explanation:

Chaudhary, who owns a home on Fish Lake that would have been affected by his legislation, told the Duluth News Tribune on Thursday that the delinquent taxes were due to his wife's wrongful termination by Celgene, a biopharmaceutical company.

"It forced her to exercise or lose some of her stock options," he said. "In general, she had to use some of her stocks to purchase other stocks, and so that led to a huge tax liability."

He said his wife has filed a wrongful termination suit against Celgene with the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission.

He said he didn't know the reason for the 2007 tax delinquency and was checking with his accountant to learn more.

It's hard to tell what effect, if any, this will have on Chaudhary's already difficult re-election bid, I mean at this point the damage has been done, but for anyone still on the fence about Chaudhary's actions this is yet one more issue to cause doubts.

Chaudhary out, Goodwin in, Chaudhary still running

From The Big E at Minnesota Progressive Project:

At an emergency meeting of the DFL SD50 Central Committee, Sen. Satveer Chaudhary was unendorsed 33-12 (exact totals unconfirmed) 32-12.  After unendorsing Chaudhry, they endorsed former two-term legislator Barb Goodwin 33-7.  Apparently, several Chaudhary supporters stormed out of the meeting after the unendorsement. 

So there you have it, Satveer Chaudhary is no longer the DFL endorsed candidate, Barb Goodwin is. So that's that right? Not quite.

Chaudhary will appeal the unendorsement to the DFL's Constitution Committee.  Brian Rice will be representing him.  Allan Weinblatt will be representing the SD50 Central Committee.

All he can contest is whether or not SD50 Central Committee were within their rights to unendorse him and will probably contest whether they did it correctly and had a quorem present.

So Chaudhary will appeal the action on the basis that the committee didn't actually get a 2/3 vote of those eligible to attend, just a 2/3 vote of those who actually attended. While I'm not too familiar with the unendorsement process, my suspicion is that his appeal will fail. That leaves us with a primary between Goodwin and Chaudhary, as Chaudhary has said he will run to the primary regardless of what happens with the appeal.This sets up what should be an interesting race, as Barb Goodwin is someone whom people in SD50 will be familiar with from her time in the state house.

One thing that I think is worth knowing about Chaudhary's attempts to keep the endorsement prior to last night's meeting (via Minnpost):

He'd also angered party leaders by supporting former Sen. Mark Dayton in the governor's race over DFL-endorsed House Speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher. Chaudhary tried to remedy that problem over the weekend when he sent a letter and a $100 check to the Kelliher campaign.

That is close to a perfect encapsulation of how Satveer Chaudhary has handled this whole situation, a day late and a dollar short.

I'll have more on this race as it develops further.