Posted on 11/15/2013 10:04:24 PM PST by Republican Wildcat
House Democrats are bracing for Republicans to may political hay next year out of ethics issues that have dogged members of the Democratic majority caucus and are preparing a deflection defense.
It’s inside baseball, House Speaker Greg Stumbo essentially said in an interview with Pure Politics this week.
“I don’t think people look at that. I think people look at what you’ve done overall,” Stumbo said in response to questions about some of the ethical issues that have faced individual House Democrats.
Former Rep. John Arnold of Sturgis resigned in September amid allegations that he sexually harassed female legislative staffers. In one of the complaints, one of the staff members said she informed another House Democrat, Rep. John Will Stacy of West Liberty, about one of the incidents involving Arnold, and Stacy dismissed it. And Rep. W. Keith Hall, D-Phelps, has faced several ethics questions, including a $2,000 fine from the Legislative Ethics Commission in 2011 for diverting coal severance tax funding to a sewer project that one of his companies was working on. House leaders promoted Hall in January to chair the House Tourism Development and Energy Committee.
House Republicans have begun to say that such things happen when one party runs a chamber for more than 90 years as Democrats have done in the state House.
Stumbo’s rebuttal was that voters won’t “buy into” Republicans’ arguments because they don’t want the same divisiveness in Frankfort that he says the GOP has demonstrated in Washington.
He added later that the controversy surrounding Arnold and others “doesn’t have any effect on policies.” (2:00 of the interview)
“John Arnold may have acted improperly. Does that mean everybody is going to be guilty of acting improperly?” Stumbo asked rhetorically.
On the Arnold situation, Stumbo said he believes Legislative Research Officials handled the allegations properly (3:30) and why he wasn’t sold that former director Bobby Sherman was the right pick for that job in the first place (4:00).
Stumbo said in the interview that he supports including sexual harassment training as part of Kentucky lawmakers’ annual ethics training. But he stopped short of saying he’s ready to support changes to LRC policies to bar lawmakers or LRC supervisors from having relationships with employees.
FULL ARTICLE with video: http://mycn2.com/politics/as-ky-gop-seeks-to-take-house-in-2014-stumbo-says-democrats-can-defend-themselves-on-ethics
Stumbo has been one of the biggest cheerleaders for Obamacare in Kentucky from the start.
The words ‘Democrats’ and ‘Ethics’ don’t belong in the same sentence unless it also includes some sort of felony charge.
What about the Senate? Their hands will always be tied to a certain degree if they don’t win both parts of Congress.
Stumpy is a thug. He spent 4 years as AG framing Gov. Ernie Fletcher and got rewarded with the House Speakership.
This is about the KY legislature. The Republicans control the State Senate and the Democrats have controlled the State House since probably before the Civil War.
Stumbo minus the st and add a d
That is exactly the image I think of when I hear the name Stumbo. My apologies if that’sreally somebodys name. I used to read Caspar. and the Ghostly Trio, along with Hot Stuff. I later graduated to Superman and Archie.
We’re way past due to flush those hypocrite swine from the KY House.
I didn’t realize this thread was so old.
Eh, just 2 weeks.
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