Palin appointed friends and donors to key posts in Alaska, records show
100-plus jobs went to campaign donors or their relatives, sometimes without apparent regard to qualifications. Several donors got state-subsidized loans for business ventures of dubious public value.
By Charles Piller
LA Times
October 24, 2008
Reporting from Anchorage — Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, plucked from relative obscurity in part for her reform credentials, has been eager to tout them in her vice presidential campaign.
"I took on the old politics as usual in Juneau when I stood up to the special interests and the lobbyists and the big oil companies and the good old boys," Palin told the Republican National Convention in her acceptance speech. She said that as a new governor she "shook things up, and in short order we put the government of our state back on the side of the people."
By midway through her first term, she had signed an ethics reform bill, increased oil profit taxes and tweaked Big Oil again by awarding a gas pipeline contract to a Canadian company.
In some other respects, a Los Angeles Times examination of state records shows, her approach to government was business as usual. Take, for example, the tradition of patronage. Some of Palin's most controversial appointments involved donors, records show.
Among The Times' findings:
* More than 100 appointments to state posts -- nearly 1 in 4 -- went to campaign contributors or their relatives, sometimes without apparent regard to qualifications.
(Continued here.)
By Charles Piller
LA Times
October 24, 2008
Reporting from Anchorage — Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, plucked from relative obscurity in part for her reform credentials, has been eager to tout them in her vice presidential campaign.
"I took on the old politics as usual in Juneau when I stood up to the special interests and the lobbyists and the big oil companies and the good old boys," Palin told the Republican National Convention in her acceptance speech. She said that as a new governor she "shook things up, and in short order we put the government of our state back on the side of the people."
By midway through her first term, she had signed an ethics reform bill, increased oil profit taxes and tweaked Big Oil again by awarding a gas pipeline contract to a Canadian company.
In some other respects, a Los Angeles Times examination of state records shows, her approach to government was business as usual. Take, for example, the tradition of patronage. Some of Palin's most controversial appointments involved donors, records show.
Among The Times' findings:
* More than 100 appointments to state posts -- nearly 1 in 4 -- went to campaign contributors or their relatives, sometimes without apparent regard to qualifications.
(Continued here.)
Powered by Blogger
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home