But the emerging global economy had a definite downside for Saenz when it brought her into contact with the partners of the Cayman Group, the front for FBI undercover agents posing as South American investors who angled to get minority set-asides from the city, including a piece of the contract for the convention center hotel.
As of this writing, no indictments have emerged from the sting that shook City Hall more than a year ago, nor, for that matter, has anyone been directly accused of a crime. But the effect on the city's Hispanic political leadership has been devastating: Among the names that have been connected to the investigation are those of Councilmen John Castillo and Felix Fraga, former councilman Ben Reyes and former port commissioner Betti Maldonado, who has said she was used as a conduit by the FBI to pass cash to councilmembers, one of them being Castillo. Maldonado has also said that, prior to her pulling the plug on the undercover operation by calling a press conference to disclose her role, the agents pressured her into trying to arrange further meetings with Saenz and another minority councilmember.
Saenz has acknowledged meeting with the Cayman Group investors but has said she took no money from them. Both Maldonado and Castillo were prominent in the crowd at Saenz's City Hall announcement, and perhaps their presence signaled nothing more than Saenz's loyalty to friends. At the same time, it's not a stretch to imagine that one way to rouse Hispanics to the polls would be to raise the specter of persecution of Hispanic politicians by the federal government.
There is a theory of some currency that the U.S. Justice Department, despite the commander-in-chief's recent call for racial healing, has for some reason been waiting until closer to the November municipal election to spring indictments on blacks and Hispanics caught in the sting, with the intent of thwarting a black or Hispanic from becoming mayor. It's a difficult theory to accept, yet theories thrive in the absence of facts. And if you were of a mind to believe such a theory, you could certainly make the few known facts fit it.
Saenz is not ready to embrace the theory -- as a former prosecutor, she says she knows to refrain from such judgments until she sees the evidence -- but it's apparent she's frustrated by the lingering cloud the investigation has cast.
"I'm angry that they haven't finished, and gotten it over with," she says, "and I hope that it doesn't happen at some opportune time for [my] opponents, I guess. I dunno -- it's weird."
It is indeed. Gracie Saenz seems uncomfortable addressing unpleasant questions in public, but a forthright discussion of her own experience with the FBI is another valuable perspective she can bring to the mayoral campaign -- especially if, as she says, the reality of it is this: "I didn't fall. God has been most gracious."
Coming from another politician, that declaration might sound sanctimonious or self-dramatizing, but coming from the fifth of nine children of a laborer from Michoacan, it holds a world of meaning.
