The definition of chutzpah...Follow

I don't understand the question. Aren't campaign funds a valid source of money for handling legal fees related to your political work?

I don't think that's correct. Perhaps if this was a divorce hearing or other personal matter but this is money being spent on political purposes. I know the Birthers were hooting over some attorney fees in Obama's FEC filings to say how much he was spending on lawyers to avoid showing his birth certificate (which was amusingly flawed on multiple levels but that's for another thread).

This isn't to defend Rangel of course; I just don't believe that his use of campaign funds for this is unethical.

I don't think it's ill-advised either. I'm fairly certain that what we consider "campaign funds" are allowed to be used in a variety of ways so long as it's associated with your political career. Certainly, for as publicized as it's been, he'd already have the FEC on him if he was spending campaign funds in an inappropriate manner.

As far as public image, keeping his seat (or even beating the charges... heh, no really!) matter for to his image than the scant few who care about how he pays the lawyers.

If this is a political matter then there should be a political (public) funding process of prosecution and defence. For me campaign donations should be exclusively used for actions that are in support of getting a politician elected to office, or keeping them there.

Congresscritters get paid enough that they should be funding their own lawyers.

We provide public defenders to murder suspects at cost to the taxpayer. Why should politicians be any different?

I'm sure in the magical land of Oz that's a perfectly acceptable solution. Here in the states, however, they give enough of our hard earned money to deadbeats. We hardly need to add congressmen to the list.

There are state and local government officials in the US who are prevented from using campaign funds to provide for their own legal defense. It becomes relatively easy for any group with money to get rid of them (recall: these are elected officials that is why they have campaign funds and that is why the groups hope to replace them with politically different folks).

This kind of situation can be avoided with carefully worded laws.

I know that this is a hard concept for some people to grasp, but not all of us judge right and wrong solely based on what works out best for us personally.

That's one of Varus' goals.

Neither. I'm accusing you of saying that conservatives would think this is a good idea. But, as I have pointed out over and over and time and again, it's liberals who tend to take the "by any means necessary" approach to politics. Conservatives tend to look at whether something is a good idea on its own merits and regardless of whether it benefits them directly in the short run.



Sure. And if conservatives acted like liberals who just pursue the opposite goals, you'd have a really darn good point. But they don't, so you don't. :)



I'm reminded of all those times Smash berated me for being conservative and voting Republican because since I'm not in the top X% percent of income earners, I'm voting against my own self interest. He was certain (and stated on several occasions) that the only reason anyone would vote Republican was if they were evil rich people who wanted to take the money from everyone else, or if they were dumb sheep who'd been talked into helping those evil rich people take their money from them. I always thought that his assumption alone spoke volumes about the difference of approach to political decisions between left and right.


That's not to say that all liberals act solely on their own self interests and all conservatives the other way around, of course. Just a broad theme is all.

Edited, Nov 18th 2010 3:19pm by gbaji

It's an interesting range of punishments they have for ethics violations:

1. Nothing
2. Letter of Reprimand
3. Public Finger-wagging
4. Expulsion

Seems like there's quite a jump between options three and four, depending on how "serious" a punishment you consider a public ego bruising.