Hamilton and White Engaged in Ugly Primary Battle

They're two political incumbents in a battle over real estate.

State representatives, James White and Mike "Tuffy" Hamilton are campaigning for District 19.

These two conservative republicans would have never crossed paths, but because of Texas redistricting, their districts were combined into one.

Their campaign ads started off positive, but have since switched gears.

Recently, Hamilton's campaign claims White behaved inappropriately in the classroom when he was a teacher.

They say they produced documents from the Livingston School District saying White repeatedly faced complaints from parents and students for inappropriate sexual discussions in class.

Hamilton's side says as a result, White resigned.

White says that's false.

"I have never done anything inappropriate in the classroom," White said.

"When I was at Livingston I received above average ratings from the school district on my teacher evaluations. In fact, they offered me a renewal contract. My teaching certification has never been invalidated.  The reason I resigned in July of 2007 is because Woodville ISD offered me a teaching position after they reviewed my teaching career.  Therefore, I requested that I could be relieved of my contract so I that I could take the job opportunity in Woodville."

Fox 4 obtained documentation that said White did receive a warning from Livingston ISD for using profanity and inappropriate comments to "get his teaching point-across-to the students."

However, those within White's campaign say Hamilton's record isn't so clean either.

They say Hamilton committed ethics violations and the state levied multiple tax liens against him for not paying taxes.

Hamilton was in fact penalized by the state for using campaign money for personal reasons and fined $2,000 dollars.

When we asked Hamilton about the allegations he did admit he had some tax troubles with "Tuffy's Catering," but those have since been resolved. Hamilton also claimed that White started the negative campaign attacks and as a result, Hamilton's campaign had to fire back.

"Whenever you run for an office and the people don't want to talk about your ten year record and want to talk about other things that's a huge compliment in one way because they don't have anything to say about your record," Hamilton said. "They can't go to your record and see because it's a very good record."

When we asked White to respond, he said he didn't want to get involved with alleging who started the negative campaigning.

It's a lot of back and forth, but with the primary election less than a week away, these two now say they want to focus on the issues, because in the end, there's only room for one of them at the table.

Hamilton and White will be busy over the next few days.

Governor Perry is scheduled to be in the area Thursday to formally endorse James White
Perry will be at Catfish Cabin in Lumberton.

Earlier Wednesday Hamilton was endorsed by several Hardin County officials in Kountze.

He says he'll be working hard over the weekend.