Stumbling out of the gate, Hare realizes he forgot to remember to resign.
Democrat congressional candidate Phil Hare said Friday he will quit his $119,000-a-year job as U.S. Rep. Lane Evans' district director rather than violate House ethics rules.(Yeah, for only $119K a year, it couldn't be for the money. That's pocket change.)
A congressional staff member who becomes a candidate to replace his or her boss must resign, according to the Campaign Booklet of the U.S. House Commitee on Standards of Official Conduct, also known as the House ethics committee.
On Thursday, a reporter raised the question that Mr. Hare could be violating House rules by campaigning while remaining an employee of Rep. Evans. Mr. Hare called a committee attorney Friday morning, who confirmed that the rules require him to resign, he said.
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Mr. Hare said he had looked through the House Ethics Manual and assumed he could keep his job.
The campaign booklet says that congressional staffers can run for office and still work at their jobs, as long as they campaign on their own time. However, congressional staffers who are candidates to succeed their employers must quit their jobs because of a strong potential of a conflict of interest, according to ethics rules. Another concern is that a congressional campaign takes up a lot of time.
The booklet also states if a staffer is thinking about becoming a candidate to replace his or her House member, the staffer may explore the possibility of running for office without resigning. Once a staffer declares his or her candidacy, he or she needs to terminate the job, according to the rules.
Mr. Hare announced his candidacy in April after Rep. Evans decided to retire because of health problems attributed to Parkinson's disease. Rep. Evans endorsed Mr. Hare.
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Mr. Hare originally had planned to take four weeks of vacation and to campaign at night and on the weekends.(emphasis mine)
Mr. Hare said it wasn't fair to voters to split his time between being a congressional staffer and a candidate. "I'm not sad about it," he said. "I didn't become Lane's district director for the money."
Congressional staffers are employees of the legislative branch of the federal government. They are not subject to the Hatch Act, which forbids employees of the executive branch from running in partisan elections.OK, have we got things figured out now? Everything set? Dare we hope for no more surprises from now until the election? Have we gotten the dumb mistakes out of the way now, or can we expect more blunders or revelations to hand the Zingoids more campaign fodder?
Beydler's not impressed.
posted by The Inside Dope @ 6/10/2006
13 comments
13 Comments:
Democracy ethics can be such Catch-22s for a guy that wants to play Congressman as badly as Hare.
If the rules are as you and Beydler describe, then Hare first (publicly) crossed the ethical line when he gave the first forum speech.
Makes me wonder if.....no, it convinces me that.....the whole saga was premeditated. He couldn't have declared candidacy to appear on a primary ballot without resigning the post, and resigning the post would have tipped his hand.
How much smoother could it get for Hare? With no real prospect of any of it negatively affecting the outcome, Hare can just shrug his shoulders, keep smiling, and press on.
No one's really asking questions. With the D/A's "investigative eye" wrongly focused on Evans' guardianship, no one will be the wiser until after the November election. No FOIA requests on the office yet?
Chickens.
This goof is far from the end of the world, it's just that as far as impressions go, it's not a good way to get a campaign started.
Of course Hare can be excused for not combing through the rules and regs with a fine toothed comb, but one could also expect that in his position and with his long-time experience, the rules regarding such things might be common knowledge, as he's certainly not the first one to be in his situation. At the least, it could be expected that he'd ask someone for clarification.
Which brings me to the second thing. Isn't there someone around Hare who's supposed to be checking these things... like an attorney or something on staff?
They dropped the ball.
You know for a fact he worked while on the clock IHG? Unless you do it's irresponsible to throw around. Baseless statements, regardless of whom they are about, are unnecessary.
Like a couple of others have mentioned, that rule was not listed in the book handed out to staffers. It was an addendum available only on-line. That being said, it was a mistake by the staff not to have known this.
No one was saying Phil had to work to survive, so accusing him of not putting some savings aside is silly.
He simply wasn't aware that he needed to resign and when.
High, agreed, there may not be an attorney on staff, but there's a few who fancy themselves advisors and insiders, and there's so damn many of them in the Dem organization that you can't swing a dead cat without hitting one. I find it unfortunate that none of them gave Hare the news.
I think if you asked federal government (legislative or executive branch) employees (not office holders) what they know about the rules, you'd find it's a pretty widely known no-no to campaign for ANY office using gov't time while collecting the dime.
As far as speaking up before the story broke, I think it's not an accurate assessment to think that the rules weren't widely known or viewed as important just because no one spoke up.
I simply think it says that each individual either: didn't know it was not ethical (hear no evil); assumed Hare was above board and "took care of it" on his own (see no evil); or were afraid to ask (speak no evil).
I'm confident that any employee at the "HS-XX" or "GS-XX" level knows the rules. There are a few of them on the Arsenal...ask them.
I'm glad that a D/A reporter did his job and asked the question. I now hope that Hare takes it the next step to keep it above board and pays back the salary collected since he stood at the podium for the first forum.
Though it wasn't an exact fit, in a previous post(regarding a postal worker who had to resign as precinct committeeman due to the Hatch act which prohibits government employees from running for office), I raised the question of whether legislators should be able to run, since they too, were government employees.
This isn't the case, needless to say, but in response to that, commenter Nicodemus wrote:
"That's right Dope, you are onto something here. Phil Hare is a federal govt. employee. So if he plans on running for Congress, shouldn't he have to resign his current position?"
This was before the D/A asked Hare about the issue... as a matter of fact, about a day or two earlier. So in that respect, it HAD been mentioned here first.
When I saw the piece in the Dispatch, I immediately assumed that it was yet another of the many story ideas that appear here first only to find their way into the Dispatch later.
So hat's off to Nico for tipping an editor at the D/A off to tell someone to ask Hare that question.
And it suggest that politicians and others would do well to make sure they pay attention to blogs. It might have saved Hare a headache.
Whatever you say Dook.
But this isn't as bad as Cheney trying to say he lived in Wyoming in order to be on the ticket. He hadn't lived there for years, didn't pay taxes, etc. and it violates the constitution to have both presidential and vice presidential candidates from the same state.
That was our first clue that they felt the constitution was nothing but an old piece of paper they could violate at will.
This minor flub is nothing and hardly rises to the "indefensible."
Bringing up Cheney's eggregious violation of a constitutional provision which should have kept him off the ballot entirely is not "changing the subject", but simply citing an example to put Hare's minor goof in perspective.
Cheney's chicanery was blatant, premeditated, and a clear attempt to evade the constitutional provisions.
If you'll recall, aside from some minor mentions of Cheney's chicanery, no one even raised a murmur about it, even though it was a much more serious and premeditated "oversight" than Hare's, which obviously could have conceivably been an honest mistake or misunderstanding.
WEll, one reason for painting it a different way is that I simply don't believe it was all those things you assert it was.
Short of any proof, I can hardly see how you can say it was. I don't even see how it could be considered breaking the law, seeing as how he did what he was required to do as soon as it was brought to his attention.
He certainly hasn't been charged with any "crime" in this thing.
I think you're hyperventilating a tad too much here.
And again, not to change the subject, but for illustration purposes only. If "lawmakers shouldn't be lawbreakers", how come the president and vice-president have three DUIs between them?
Oh... I guess they're not technically "lawmakers" though. Just leaders of the free world.
The question of whether candidates are 'lawbreakers' isn't the real issue.
They must first be elected.
"Should or shouldn't be lawbreakers" is up to the voters to decide, and how much that affects their decision is the real question.
In this case: Ignorance of the law doesn't excuse the act. Only the voters can do that.
Rope-a-dope,
Ok, you win. Your tenacity on this issue has brought it down to brass tacks.
First, did Hare violate a law, or an internal House ethical guideline??
If so, what should be done? Are these sorts of things routinely prosecuted? (I doubt it, nor should they be.)
Isn't the fact that he quickly corrected the problem a mitigating factor? Kind of a "no harm, no foul" situation?
Rope-a-dope,
Ok, you win. Your tenacity on this issue has brought it down to brass tacks.
First, did Hare violate a law, or an internal House ethical guideline??
If so, what should be done? Are these sorts of things routinely prosecuted? (I doubt it, nor should they be.)
Isn't the fact that he quickly corrected the problem a mitigating factor? Kind of a "no harm, no foul" situation?
And I admit that I've only heard about the Evans supposed campaign finance violations by hearsay.
But the way I understand it, it was a pretty techincal violation, in that money that was supposed to go to one on-paper entity went to the wrong one. (I don't recall exactly)
At any rate, the story was that if Evans & Co. had chosen to stand and fight it, they probably would have prevailed.
But that the legal expenses involved were absolutely collossal, and would have been even higher than any penalty or fine.
It was one of those situations where you have to make a choice for espedience and economy or fighting for principle and losing everything.
Can any one with any solid knowledge of this situation provide some background and factual information about it?
I'd like to get it nailed down before people start writing in suggesting that Hare was directly involved in some blatant and serious money games or violations of the law.
C'mon, I'm sure someone can provide the facts surrounding this. Don't be afraid of those who don't want you to participate here.
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