Paducah Sun Newspaper Takes Governor Steve Beshear To Task Over Labor Appointment.
The Paducah Sun/Editorial
SAME OLD
Labor appointment at odds with Beshear’s promises
Thursday, August 07, 2008
It’s been nearly a year, and our memory is a little fuzzy, but didn’t Steve Beshear campaign on a theme of restoring ethics to the governor’s office? Something about a hiring scandal in the previous administration, as we recall.
So it sounds awfully strange that the governor has hired a policy advisor, Danny Ross, who was indicted in 1998 for breaking campaign laws. He was never prosecuted, thanks to a pardon from then-governor Paul Patton, who also pardoned two Louisville Teamsters and his own chief of staff, Skipper Martin, also charged in the probe.
It was the least Patton could do. After all, Ross was charged with steering labor union funds over the legal limit to Patton’s 1995 campaign.
Ross also worked as labor liaison under former Attorney General Greg Stumbo. That would be the same Greg Stumbo who launched an investigation against former Gov. Ernie Fletcher for the crime of hiring political supporters to state jobs.
Fletcher pardoned those in his administration indicted in the probe, all except for himself, after which Stumbo settled for a plea agreement in which he dropped charges against the governor in exchange for the governor saying he should have been more careful.
Of course, Fletcher’s real crime was governing while Republican. Stumbo never dropped that charge.
Now Ross will serve as policy advisor to Labor Secretary J.R. Gray with a $60,000 annual salary. His history taints the Labor Cabinet and, indirectly, the state’s labor community.
Common Cause of Kentucky Chairman Richard Beliles asked, “I would wonder if there aren’t other good labor union people out there, who are devoted to the cause, who don’t have these problems.”
That’s a fair question. Can the Beshear administration not find among all the labor leaders in Kentucky a policy advisor without an ethical cloud hanging over his head?
SAME OLD
Labor appointment at odds with Beshear’s promises
Thursday, August 07, 2008
It’s been nearly a year, and our memory is a little fuzzy, but didn’t Steve Beshear campaign on a theme of restoring ethics to the governor’s office? Something about a hiring scandal in the previous administration, as we recall.
So it sounds awfully strange that the governor has hired a policy advisor, Danny Ross, who was indicted in 1998 for breaking campaign laws. He was never prosecuted, thanks to a pardon from then-governor Paul Patton, who also pardoned two Louisville Teamsters and his own chief of staff, Skipper Martin, also charged in the probe.
It was the least Patton could do. After all, Ross was charged with steering labor union funds over the legal limit to Patton’s 1995 campaign.
Ross also worked as labor liaison under former Attorney General Greg Stumbo. That would be the same Greg Stumbo who launched an investigation against former Gov. Ernie Fletcher for the crime of hiring political supporters to state jobs.
Fletcher pardoned those in his administration indicted in the probe, all except for himself, after which Stumbo settled for a plea agreement in which he dropped charges against the governor in exchange for the governor saying he should have been more careful.
Of course, Fletcher’s real crime was governing while Republican. Stumbo never dropped that charge.
Now Ross will serve as policy advisor to Labor Secretary J.R. Gray with a $60,000 annual salary. His history taints the Labor Cabinet and, indirectly, the state’s labor community.
Common Cause of Kentucky Chairman Richard Beliles asked, “I would wonder if there aren’t other good labor union people out there, who are devoted to the cause, who don’t have these problems.”
That’s a fair question. Can the Beshear administration not find among all the labor leaders in Kentucky a policy advisor without an ethical cloud hanging over his head?
Labels: Democratism, Kentucky politics, News reporting
posted by KYJurisDoctor at 8:11 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home