Minnis sends wrong message
From the Gresham Outlook editorial:
Former House Speaker Karen Minnis, A Republican from Wood Village, may not have broken campaign-fund laws, but she certainly has raised eyebrows and aided in the impression of wrongdoing.
Minnis, who is retiring as an Oregon lawmaker, shifted $20,500 of her leftover campaign funds to four Republican campaign committees. Soon after, she was hired as a paid consultant by those same committees – although she ended up not accepting payment from two of them. State law allows politicians to donate leftover campaign money to committees and nonprofit organizations. But it’s illegal to convert those dollars into personal use.
Some people have viewed Minnis’ actions as crossing that thin gray line by perhaps providing funding to a committee that later would pay her for services – in effect, rewarding that donation with employment.
Minnis, a highly experienced politician, should have known better. She easily could have avoided this situation by going through the hiring process and then choosing to give her leftover campaign cash to organizations that she wasn’t working for.
Posted on August 13, 2008
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