Ethics Complaint Against Bobo Dismissed

Freemarket has the exclusive on the news that the Jud Malone ethics complaint against Delegate Elizabeth Bobo has been dismissed. Basically, the Ethics Committee supported Bobo's excuse:

CA is considered a private homeowner’s association by the committee, so according to the committee there is no ethical problem with Bobo using a taxpayer provided resource (her official delegate e-mail address) to stump for whoever she wants for the CA board.

Of course, the Committee doesn't recognize the influence that said "private homeowner's association" has on Columbia and its politics. Quite a bogus decision from the House of Delegates. Then again, they convened in a special session to hike state income taxes, recently approved speed cameras statewide, and are a generally corrupt body. Did you expect anything different?

Resident Files Ethics Complaint Against Del. Bobo

On Explore Howard today, Derek Simmonsen has details about Jud Malone's ethics complaint filed against Delegate Liz Bobo.

Jud Malone, president of Columbia Tomorrow, a local group supportive of General Growth Properties’ downtown redevelopment plan, filed the complaint March 26 with the General Assembly’s Joint Committee on Legislative Ethics. In his complaint, he cited e-mails from 2007 and 2008 in which Bobo, a Columbia Democrat, endorsed candidates in CA elections using her official state e-mail.

In his complaint, Malone cited ethics rules against using the legislature’s e-mail system for non-public purposes and to influence campaigns.

Then, over at Free Market, I saw Bill Santos' post that has a letter that Bobo sent from her state account pertaining to the CA election in question.

Bobo claims ignorance of the ethics rule.

This is the second time in recent memory that Bobo has claimed ignorance as a political excuse for her actions. Earlier in the year, Bobo claimed that she cast a vote for a bill that she thought was a different bill. She then used that as an excuse to revisit the vote and conveniently change it after politics dictated a vote change.

At the same time, there are worse things than this. Sure, this is unethical. But an email is not the end of the world unless it is only the tip of an iceburg that we are yet to know. Honestly, I doubt that is the case.