Ethics investigations cost state $296,000 (Anti-Palin Cases)

Ethics complaints against Gov. Sarah Palin and top members of her administration have cost the state personnel board nearly $300,000 over the past year, almost two-thirds of which appear to be from the Troopergate investigation of the governor.

That's according to new figures released by the personnel board, which described them as "independent counsel expenditures." The board hires private lawyers to investigate the complaints. The expenditures were released after the personnel board expressed frustration at the costs of the complaints. Palin has said the state is wasting money trying to resolve "frivolous" complaints against her.

The bulk of the expenses -- $187,797 -- appear to stem from Troopergate, the messy case involving Palin's former brother-in-law, a state trooper, who got on the wrong side with Palin and her family.

Palin herself initiated at least a part of the ethics case to counter a legislative investigation into the same matter. An additional Troopergate ethics complaint was brought by the state troopers union, which complained Palin and others improperly disclosed confidential personnel and workers' compensation records of her former brother-in-law, Mike Wooten, and engaged in systematic efforts to have Wooten fired. The personnel board dismissed the union complaint....

Oh My Gosh!! $296K? I had no idea the costs of left wing driven ethics lawsuits had climbed so high. I'm not certain, but that may be less than what every man, woman and child in America will owe if Barry gets his way on cap and trade and socialised medicine.

Good article. Keeps us all focused on the real problems in Amerika.

The bulk of the expenses -- $187,797 -- appear to stem from Troopergate, the messy case involving Palin's former brother-in-law, a state trooper, who got on the wrong side with Palin and her family.
Palin herself initiated at least a part of the ethics case to counter a legislative investigation into the same matter
Newspapers can't seem to tell the truth these days. The troopergate case wasn't about a guy who got "on the wrong side" with Palin, it was about a trooper who abused a child and broke department regulations. And in fact, it wasn't really about the trooper at all, but about a baseless charge that Palin punished a member of her administration for not firing the trooper, by somehow tricking him into resigning.
And she filed the charges NOT to "stop the legislature" but because by the stupid Alaska law, she was required to file them since there was an "ethics issue" raised.

The problem here is Alaska has a stupid ethics law, and if they want to stop wasting their money they have to change the law so that every complaint isn't taken seriously.

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