ohio ethics commission

Both parties suffer from corrupt members of their caucuses, but the Republican party seems to have a pandemic of corruption deep within it, even locally. Here is what’s happening here in Butler County, Ohio – the home of IntoxiNation and minority leader John Boehner:

Butler County is doing more than its share these days to keep the FBI and Ohio Ethics Commission busy.

Two of the county’s three commissioners are under investigation by the ethics commission on accusations of nepotism.

The most recent subject is Commissioner Gregory Jolivette, who admits to voting on the hiring of and pay for both his son and daughter as county employees in 2004 through 2006.

There is much more listed in the article, including details of our former county auditor who was arrested and had to resign last year. What the article fails to mention is that every single person listed in it is a Republican. The Republicans have had a lock on our county for years and this single party rule has opened the door to wider spread corruption.

I’m just waiting for the day they frog march the entire county administration out.

Now that Bob Taft has pleaded no-contest to the four counts
of ethic violations, will he resign from office? Following the own standards
that the Governor has enforced in Ohio, he should.

 In August of 2002, the executive director of the Ohio
Turnpike Commission resigned hours after Governor Taft urged him to resign or be
fired. What was the crime? Accepting gifts from businesses, the exact same crime
Governor Taft was found guilty of today.

In the memo calling for Zomaprelli to resign, Taft said:

 ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã…“Public employees should follow both the letter and the
spirit of the ethics laws. That is the standard I expect for all state
employees. After review of the inspector general's report, it is clear that
the executive director and the OTC staff have not met this standard”

Today, Taft did admit to his failing to meet his own
standards but did not mention if he would resign or not. The following is a
statement
from Governor Taft:

“I am here today to publicly apologize to the people of
the State of Ohio for my failure to provide complete financial disclosure
statements to the Ohio Ethics Commission as mandated by law. I accept total
responsibility for my mistake, and I’m sorry.

 

“As a public official, I am required to submit financial
disclosure statements on a yearly basis listing the sources of gifts in excess
of $75.00. My office had a system in place to ascertain the value of tangible
gifts in order to report them as required. Regrettably, I did not establish an
adequate system to monitor the value of golf outings and other social events.