2009.07.31
Virginia's legal conflict
As near as we can tell, Del. Phillip Hamilton of Newport News hasn't broken any laws or rules. He's a powerful member of the House of Delegates who sponsored a bill in 2007 to provide state funding to create a Center for Teacher Quality and Educational Leadership at Old Dominion University. The program continues to receive half a million dollars annually.
And Hamilton receives $40,000 of that each year as a consultant to the program. He says there is no conflict of interest because he wasn't working for the school in 2007 and he has done nothing since getting the job to push funding. Plus he's upfront with voters about the whole thing, filing his finance reports dutifully.
No, he doesn't appear to have broken any rules, and that tells us the rules are broken. We're writing an editorial for Monday that will urge lawmakers to take a close look at this situation and see how they can adjust their ethics rules to prevent it from happening again. Lawmakers should not be able to benefit directly from state spending they sponsor.
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HMMM...
So if a lawmaker votes for legislation to, say, provide for free medical care, and then goes to his doctor and gets free medical care....
Comment by Ed H — July 31, 2009 @ 12:04 pm