From our Concept with a Capital K desk:
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Massachusetts Democrats File Ethics Complaint against Scott Brown
Brown campaign video was shot by taxpayer-funded staffer working at an official event BOSTON – Today, the Massachusetts Democratic Party filed a complaint with the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Ethics calling for an investigation into Republican Senator Scott Brown’s use of official, taxpayer-funded resources for campaign purposes.
On April 28, 2012, Scott Brown’s campaign circulated an online video of the junior senator’s successful fifth attempt at making a half-court shot at the Hyannis Youth and Community Center during an official event. The video, which was made available on the Brown Campaign’s website and YouTube channel, was filmed by a taxpayer-funded Senate staffer at an event the Senator attended in his official capacity, according to a report in the Boston Globe. Brown’s taxpayer funded staffer shot the video “as she worked on federal time, staffing the senator at an event he was attending in his governmental capacity,” the Globe wrote. “And she was in Massachusetts after flying to and from Washington on a ticket paid for by the government.” “Neither Senator Brown nor the campaign has ever claimed (nor could it be claimed) that the video was recorded for any governmental purpose,” Walsh wrote in a letter to the committee’s Chair and Vice Chair. United States Code and the Senate Ethics Manual forbid official Senate staffers from engaging in campaign activity while simultaneously performing official duties for which they receive compensation from the United States government. Although Senate employees are free to engage in political activity, it must be on their own time – and not when they are staffing a Senator at an office event. “By permitting his official staff to engage in campaign related activity while serving in their official capacity, Senator Brown has failed in his responsibility to ensure that the interests of his campaign do not conflict with or detract from official staff duties and acted in violation of federal law,” Walsh wrote. The full text of the complaint is below. |
Actually, it’s not. I decided to spare you the LP-version idiocy on display here.
No wonder people don’t take politics seriously.
You can say “this is just stupid”, but you can’t say “just this is stupid.”
Hard to argue with that, Bob.
It is stupid, but it’s hardly Democrats who started this sort of stuff.
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