[6] In the fall of 2014, Maldonado became actively involved in LCC trustee elections when he stood on street corners and wrote two letters to the Laredo Morning Times to express support for two candidates, Jackie L. Ramos and Ed Gonzalez, who ran, respectively, against trustees Jesse Porras, a former LCC employee, and Hilario Cavazos, Jr., a former educator with the Laredo Independent School District.

[7] Porras and Cavazos subsequently lost their reelection bids to Jackie Ramos and Michelle de la Peña, respectively.

[8] In October 2014, Maldonado took nearly two weeks of leave time while the trustee campaign was underway, in his words, "to reinstate a sense of professional decorum and integrity to our beloved LCC and its governing board.

[9][10] The Laredo Morning Times questioned Maldonado's politicking in trustee elections; its education reporter, Judith Rayo, suggested that he could have been "walking on thin ice" legally in support of the three favored candidates, noting that in 1992 the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans upheld the firing of a school superintendent for similar "electioneering".

Her attorney, George Altgelt, subsequently elected to one of the eight seats on the Laredo City Council, said that Stewart had been "retaliated against for doing exactly what her job requires her to do.

"Dan" Flores, Jr. (1938-2016),[23] of "retaliation, verbal abuse, harassment, mental anguish, creation of a hostile work environment, and excessive stress and harm to her professional reputation.

[6][26][27] In May 2016, the trustees voted 6–1, with two members absent, to name as Maldonado's successor Ricardo Solis, the former dean of academic, professional, and technical education at GateWay Community College in Phoenix, Arizona.