A Failure To Be Truthful: Governor's response to debate question

Website Vooweb.com provides the biggest collection of professional Web 2.0 Templates. Web 2.0 Templates - its a website templates which made by world-class designers. Buy our Web 2.0 Templates | A family cooking recipes with hundreds of healthy, whole-food cooking recipes for the home cook. Healthy Food cooking Recipes For Your Entire Family

A Failure To Be Truthful: Governor's response to debate question

New London Day October 20, 2006

Governor's response to debate quesiton about chief of staff was misleading.

In Wednesday's debate, WVIT co-anchor Joanne Nesti asked Gov. M. Jodi Rell why she didn't fire Chief of Staff Lisa Moody after she used her state office to hand state commissioners invitations to a fund-raiser for the governor.

"Because what she did was to break my personal policy. It would be obviously, totally different if the law had been broken," Gov. Rell replied.

This is technically correct, but in context it is nonsense. Ms. Moody did in fact break Gov. Rell's personal policy of not mixing political fund-raising with the official duties of the governor's office, but in handing out the fund-raiser invitations, the chief of staff also caused some 16 state department heads to break the campaign finance law. Commissioners are prohibited from seeking donations to the governor's campaign.

As a result of Ms. Moody's pressure on the commissioners, 16 of them were fined for violating the campaign-finance laws. The governor knows this, but misled the public in her answer during the debate by not addressing that issue.

Ms. Moody acted just before the governor's campaign was required to file its first financial report. The campaign wanted to show a large and successful fund-raising effort and Ms. Moody did not hesitate to apply pressure to the commissioners, in effect inducing them to break the law.

Some had the courage to say no. Sixteen of them did not.

Having staked out the high moral ground on ethics and campaign finance reform in state government, the governor was all the more obligated to deal seriously and decisively with Ms. Moody's inappropriate behavior. Gov. Rell should have had the courage to fire her longtime chief of staff, but she did not have the gumption to do what was right.

Gov. Rell instead suspended Ms. Moody for several weeks without pay, a slap on the wrist that does not take seriously her chief of staff's wrongdoing.

On the biggest test about how much ethical conduct means to her - wrongdoing by her own chief of staff - Gov. Rell did not rise to the occasion and do what was required.