The Advocate
January 30, 2008 ; page 6B
Advocate Opinion page staff (author unknown)
This editorial comments on the recent ethics violation of Governor Bobby Jindal. Because his staff failed to timely disclose $118,000 in aid to the Republican Party. This spending occurred in June and should have been disclosed in July, and because his committee failed to do so, the Ethics Board is charging him a fine. The author mentions how interesting that this is happening because Jindal made Ethics reform a central position in his campaign. Also, because Jindal is choosing to simply pay the fine and move on, the author seemed upset that Jindal is using campaign money to pay the fine. The author claims that these Jindal campaign supporters are ending up paying for a violation THEY did not do. The author is offended that Jindal would use the campaign funds to pay the fine for his own committee's mistakes, however, the press secretary for Jindal explained "Campaign was fined. Campaign will pay." The writer seems to believe that the violation of ethics should be paid out of Jindal's own pocket.
This article made a good point, but I disagree that the author should be so upset that Jindal was using campaign funds. He is not campaigning anymore since he has already won, so what would he do with the money if not pay the violation that the campaign caused? Maybe that is silly, but I thought that the author seemed to just be looking for ways to attack Jindal. He presented his points well and tried hard to convince supporters of Jindal that he is using their money to pay his own violations when that may not be completely the case. However, the author did a good job of expressing how Jindal supporters may not have wanted their money to be spent that way.
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2 comments:
The problem is that Jindal campaigned on ethics reform, won, and assigned a team of people to tell him what ethics changes should be made. One of their suggestions was that fines for ethics violations shouldn't be able to be paid from campaign cash, regardless of the violation. When fines are paid from the campaign fund, it no longer hurts anyone, and therefore is an ineffective deterrent for further unethical behavior.
You make a good point when you say that "He is not campaigning anymore since he has already won, so what would he do with the money if not pay the violation that the campaign caused?", but I'm sure the people that paid for it don't feel the same way. I know I wouldn't if it was my money.
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