All those frivolous ethics complaints filed against Alaska Governor Sarah Palin are starting to add up the UPI reports they’ve cost taxpayer nearly “a third of a million dollars.”
JUNEAU, Alaska, May 28 (UPI) — The ethics complaints filed against Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin are running a tab of nearly “a third of a million dollars,” the state’s personnel board said.
“We’ve spent pretty close to about a third of a million dollars, and it’s getting to be really expensive,” Alaska Personnel Board member Al Tamagni told the Anchorage Daily News.
The board, during its meeting Wednesday, was trying to see whether they publicize the cost of addressing the complaints without violating confidentiality rules, the newspaper reported Thursday.
The panel also dismissed a complaint against Palin, the Republican vice presidential nominee in 2008, and her political action committee.
To date the Alaska Personnel Board has review and dismissed as meritless 13 ethics complaints against Gov. Palin. The money quote comes from Anchorage activist Andree McLeod who has filed several ethics complaints against Palin and her staff:
“The whole way to mitigate all this is for Palin to behave ethically,” said McLeod, who filed the complaint dismissed by the board Wednesday.
If there was long history of proven ethics violations by Gov. Palin and her staff I’d agree with Ms. McLeod… But there isn’t. At this point the simplest way for the State of Alaska to mitigate this is for it to start charging people who repeatedly file frivolous ethics complaints intended to harass the Governor and her staff for the costs associated with investigating them.
Interestingly enough, in Alaska if you file an ethics complaint against a state senator, representative, mayor, or any other official below the governors office, and then go public with it, the complaint is automatically dismissed. Only the governor and her staff can have a complaint filed against them, and have the person filing the complaint go public with that complaint, and still have the complaint considered. Those filing complaints against Palin always hold a news conference the same day, and are given free air time, and print. These complaints have all been politically inspired attacks, with the aim of being able to say in 2012 or whenever, that Palin had X number of “ethics” complaints filed against her, thereby tarnishing her reputation as an ethical reformer. The law definately needs to be changed to keep Palin and future governors from being the subject of politically inspired harrassment.