vxc
...@ymail.com wrote:
> Palin's Ethics Scrapes May Undercut Pledge to End Old Politics
> Timothy J. Burger and Tony Hopfinger
> Thu Sep 11, 12:01 AM ET
> Sept. 11 (Bloomberg) -- John McCain's choice of Sarah Palin as his
> running mate sent a signal that he would end business as usual and
> cronyism in government. Her record shows the Alaska governor engaged
> in some of the same practices she and McCain now condemn.
> Palin's office approved a state job for a friend and campaign aide
> with whom she shared a land investment, financial records and
> interviews over the past two weeks show. She hired a former lobbyist
> for a pipeline company to help oversee a multibillion-dollar deal with
> that same company.
> She named a police chief accused of harassment to head the state
> police. And she sent campaign e-mails on her city hall account while
> serving as mayor of Wasilla -- conduct for which she later turned in
> an oil commissioner on ethics charges.
> These incidents raise ``some serious questions about her judgment and
> serious questions about her standards of ethics in public service,''
> said James Thurber, director of American University's Center for
> Congressional and Presidential Studies in Washington. Suggesting a
> real estate investment partner for a job ``may be acceptable in
> Alaska; it would not be acceptable in Washington, D.C., a place whose
> norms she wants to change.''
> Palin defeated an incumbent governor, a fellow Republican, in 2006
> charging that her party's old guard had committed ethical lapses and
> become too cozy with special interests, including oil companies. A
> central theme in this year's presidential campaign has been that
> Palin's record demonstrates the change a McCain administration would
> bring to Washington.
> Recent statements by the governor may erode that claim. In her
> acceptance speech last week, she suggested that she opposed the
> infamous ``Bridge to Nowhere,'' a $223 million earmark for a bridge to
> an island where only 53 people lived.
> For It, Against It
> When Palin, 44, campaigned for governor, however, she said she was in
> favor of the bridge. In 2007, she canceled the project in the face of
> national outrage. The state never returned the money allocated by the
> federal government, with some of the funds going toward other state
> and local projects.
> And as mayor of Wasilla, a job she held for six years until 2002,
> Palin hired lobbyists to get federal funding for local projects.
> Wasilla secured $27 million in earmarks for the town of about 9,000
> that included a rail project and a youth center.
> Shortly after she was elected governor, Palin's office signed off on
> hiring Deborah Richter -- who attended college for a year then worked
> in bookkeeping and finance jobs -- as director of a division that
> distributes dividends to Alaskans from the state's oil-wealth savings
> account.
> Richter, who said she's known Palin for 13 years, was Palin's
> gubernatorial campaign treasurer and ran her inaugural committee.
> Sharing an Investment
> The Richters and Palins also shared an investment: 30 acres of rural
> property near a lake in Petersville, Alaska, worth $47,300, according
> to Matanuska-Susitna Borough data.
> ``It sounds like a patronage deal for someone who ran your campaign;
> that's pretty normal,'' said Bill Buzenberg, executive director of the
> Center for Public Integrity in Washington. ``What's not normal is that
> they have business dealings together.''
> No evidence has emerged to suggest that laws were broken in the
> appointment, and Richter said she ``didn't go in there with any
> promises from the governor or the chief of staff or anybody. I turned
> in my resume'' to the governor's transition team ``and I didn't know
> if anyone was going to call me.''
> ``She was qualified,'' said Pat Galvin, commissioner of the Department
> of Revenue and Richter's boss. Galvin said he also interviewed other
> people for the job and that Richter has done well. He said Palin's
> office approved his selection of Richter.
> Not Palin's Decision
> Palin's gubernatorial spokesman, William McAllister, said the decision
> to hire Richter was Galvin's. ``I have no knowledge of land ownership
> or college degrees,'' he said.
> Deborah Richter gave up her share of the property last September in a
> divorce settlement that followed an affair with Palin's legislative
> director, John Bitney. Bitney and Richter both acknowledged the affair
> in interviews. Bitney said Palin fired him over it; Richter is still
> on the job. They are now married.
> Last month, Palin signed a law granting TransCanada Corp., Canada's
> largest pipeline company, an exclusive state license and up to $500
> million in subsidies to proceed with work on a $27 billion pipeline,
> which would carry natural gas from Alaska to other U.S. markets.
> Once a Lobbyist
> Marty Rutherford, the chief coordinator behind Palin's pipeline
> effort, once worked as an Alaska lobbyist for a TransCanada pipeline
> subsidiary, according to state records. Rutherford, deputy
> commissioner at the Alaska Department of Natural Resources, earned
> $40,200 as a lobbyist for 10 months in 2003 working for Foothills, the
> subsidiary.
> Rutherford said in an interview that she only did consulting work for
> the company, including reviewing natural gas legislation. She said the
> work had no bearing on her future job as coordinator of Palin's
> pipeline team.
> ``I intended to leave state government when I went to Jade North, but
> as time went on I realized my heart was in government,'' she said,
> referring to the firm she briefly worked for.
> Palin told the Anchorage Daily News last December that Rutherford's
> work with Foothills wasn't a conflict because it had been five years
> earlier.
> Trooper Investigation
> The governor already has triggered an investigation by the Alaska
> legislature into whether she fired the state commissioner of public
> safety, Walt Monegan, for not removing a state trooper involved in a
> contentious divorce from Palin's sister.
> Palin has denied exerting any pressure on Monegan and said she
> dismissed him because she wanted to take the department in a new
> direction.
> Since McCain picked Palin, seven Palin aides have declined to be
> interviewed on the matter by an investigator hired by the Alaska
> legislature, according to the House and Senate Judiciary committees.
> Earlier this year, Palin found herself apologizing for her handling of
> Monegan's replacement. About six weeks before she learned McCain
> wanted her to be his vice president, she named Kenai, Alaska, police
> chief Charles Kopp to replace Monegan.
> On July 25, two weeks after being appointed, Kopp resigned amid
> scrutiny over a 2005 sexual-harassment complaint against him while he
> was chief in Kenai. The complaint resulted in a letter of reprimand
> from the city, which Palin told reporters she never knew about and had
> believed that the allegations were unsubstantiated, according to the
> Anchorage Daily News.
> Not a Harasser
> In a July press conference, Kopp denied any harassment. ``I've always
> done every job I've ever done with honor and integrity,'' he said.
> ``There is one thing I am not. I am not a sex harasser.'' Attempts to
> reach him were unsuccessful.
> Asked about these episodes in Palin's career, McCain campaign
> spokesman Tucker Bounds lauded her reform efforts. Bounds said Palin
> has allowed the public to scrutinize state financial information,
> ``cut wasteful spending by a quarter of a billion dollars just last
> year and ushered in landmark ethics legislation.''
> The moment that crystallized her image as a reformer came when she
> turned in state Republican chairman Randy Ruedrich after discovering
> he was using his state e-mail account to conduct party business.
> Palin and Ruedrich were serving together as commissioners on the
> Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, a state regulatory agency,
> at the time. Ruedrich resigned from the commission in November 2003,
> and was later fined $12,000, according to a 2004 article in the
> Anchorage Daily News.
> In 2006, Palin found herself asking forgiveness for a similar offense
> from her past, according to a July 28, 2006, article in the Anchorage
> Daily News. She had sent campaign e- mails from her Wasilla mayor's
> office in 2002, when she made an unsuccessful run for lieutenant
> governor.
> ``For any mistakes like that (were) made, I apologize,'' Palin said of
> the e-mail controversy in July 2006, according to the Anchorage Daily
> News.
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