My previous post on the pending investigation of Mike Brunelle was to poke fun at the lefts hypocrisy on the influence of money, anticipate the caterwauling, and suggest a course for clarifying the meaning of the text. In the intervening days, it seems obvious that I left some points out, some made by democrats.
I can’t speak for the text of the State Constitution but if Brunelle is a concern so should anyone else who has fiscal skin in the game on those terms, whatever the game may be. But you need to clarify the terms and quickly. If the meaning is that Party paid operatives cannot be House members, then none of them can.
My position is not simply to harp on Brunelle but to make a larger point that there are circumstances where representatives need to recuse themselves and that the relationship between personal agenda’s and legislation is an issue on so many fronts that you can’t necessarily draw enough lines to meet the restrictions.
Historically, we have had plenty of obvious cases of conflict of interest, but that is no excuse not to look at it now. And if you want to claim to be passing the light of this session though the lens of the state constitution, then all the light must pass through it not just that seeping dimly off Mike Brunelle.
Brunelle may be a risk to the state as a left wing, tax and spend, democrat, but that is a matter for his constituents to decide. If the House wants to pursue this extent any greater purpose, the entire event is a distraction, not from the important business that will go on while one subcommittee looks at one relationship, but from the media energy focused on what will clearly be more interesting soap-opera fare than budgets and deficits and spending, oh my.
And if he is in violation, and he is expelled, it will be a Pyrrhic victory: a distraction that will consume the business of that body for most of the session as everyone and everything is brought before the court of public opinion to be flogged by the specter of a conflict of interest.
