After considering the seriousness of the violations described under Sections III and IV, including the nature, circumstances, and consequences of the violations, and after considering the sanction necessary to deter future violations, the commission imposes a $6,400 civil penalty, contingent upon the respondent reimbursing the amount at issue ($25,538) to his political funds by November 12, 2008.(See "Home Cookin' fo campaign expenses" by Rick Casey of the Houston Chronicle for background.) Isett paid his wife, "Cheri Isett Bookkeeping & Tax Services” over $36,000 for accounting services. Paying your spouse or a dependent child with your donors money is not allowed by law. Due to the 2 year statute of limitations the Ethics Commission allowed him to keep $11,000 and only addressed the $25,000.
In January of 2007 he discontinued paying his wife and and instead paid $36,000 to Lubbock Accounting Services, which just so happens to be a corporation registered with the Secretary of State and owned by his wife. The Ethics Commission refused to sanction Isett for the $36,000 probably because Isett and his attorney crafted a sweet legal loophole. Look for this be closed in 2009. He has since stopped paying LAS also.
An interesting tidbit was that Isett paid Lubbock Accounting Services $36,000 for the year 2007, more than half of what he raised ($71,000) for the entire year. One of his end of the year reports cost $3000 which is an incredible amount for any report.
All in all, he was able to pocket about $50,000. It must be good to be the king.
12 comments:
Wow! I'm not sure you made this clear, but Isett has to pay the $25K from his personal funds.
Hopefully that's enough hurt to set an example to the rest of the legislators.
You mean ann elected offical has to pay from their own pocket? I second WOW!!!
John, can I send you some names you may want to look into?
The law he broke is pretty simple:
"A candidate or officeholder may not use political contributions to pay for personal services rendered by the candidate or officeholder or by the spouse, or dependent children of the candidate or officeholder."
Like and or DUH! And he got caught. Unfortunately he got away with $39,000 paid to his wife's corporation.
And this shows the proglem with the ethics laws, not Isett's actions. What he paid for were not PERSONAL services -- they were PROFESSIONAL services by any logical definition. It wasn't theft, nor was it a give-away -- funds were paid for value received. The only thing making what he did "unethical" is that "we say they are unethical" -- not anything in the quality of the act itself.
quit butt kissing anonymous.
He paid $7000 for an end of year report. That isn't professional services. That is stealing.
He broke the law. It is plain and simple. quit making excuses for him.
Well the "proglem" is that you can't use your campaign cash to line your own pockets. By paying his wife for services, his family income soared.
He tried to do a work around and declare her business separate from his finances, but the end result was the same - together they had more personal money to spend. Money he got from his lobbyist buddies.
So, the ruling is correct. Isett violated the intent of the ethics laws. He's a big whiner and cry baby in the Lubbockonline article, but he broke the rules and is correctly having to repay his campaign account.
The Republicans would like you to think they are the law and order guys and that they are pro-family. Isett certainly has lived up to the pro-family part by paying salary to his wife, but can't seem to follow the law - and when gets caught, acts like a big baby.
Why SHOULDN'T you be allowed to higher a family member to perform professional services that they are qualified to provide?
And don't say "because it is illegal". Give me an actual reason that makes logical sense.
Time to make the "pie higher".
Hey anonymous, try sticking your nose up Isett's butt a little more.
Anonymous at 3:30 is Matt. Magic sparkle pony Matt.
Because, Matt, for the very same reason Isett is in trouble. He's profiting off of his donors' contributions. It leads to all sort of nasty things like buying influence.
The spirit of the law, matt, is that it prevents lobbyists from buying influence like donating money to a candidate so he could pay his wife and profit from his favorable votes for the lobbyist.
It is really that simple.
I have not left a comment on this post.
puss
Post a Comment