Search this blog to save time

Thursday, September 30, 2010

Joe Miller Fails to file Senate Disclosure, Hides from reporters.

Joe Miller has so far failed to file the necessary Senate Disclosure forms for his investments, personal holdings and potential conflict on interests. These reports are due once a candidate receives more than $5000 in campaign contributions, in this case they were due in April. Both of the other contenders for the Alaska senate seat, Lisa Murkowski and Scott McAdams have filed their appropriate claims. These forms serve to allow the public a glimpse of the candidates investments and personal wealth so that potential conflicts of interest can be identified. The forms are vague to protect at least some privacy, but list such items as college funds, properties, income source, stock holdings, and other investments.

Joe Miller's campaign manager chalks this up to a simple 'oversight' and claims the forms will be filed shortly. Still one is left wondering how such an important part of the process can be ignored. There is a fine of $200 for being one month late on the filing and Miller requested no extension. The fine for not filing at all is $50,000. To me this seems like odd behavior for a man that refused to pay the full price for his hunting and fishing license, and instead choose to apply for a low-income license. (See previous blog post)

So what does he have to hide? It would be fairly simple to compile the necessary information to file the form. Government forms might be confusing but they are seldom impossible. I'm sure someone in the Republican party knows how to fill this form out. Lisa sure does. From a man who seems to have taken advantage of just about every government program he has been eligible for, maybe he's afraid of what people will think if he has more farm subsidies or something.

Regardless of what he is hiding Miller is completely unwilling to talk with reporters, even to the point of misleading and lying. While attending a Republican fund raiser in Washington D.C. Miller left through the back door and was presumably picked up in the alley way. When a reporter asked the driver of a black pickup if he was there for Miller the driver answered 'no', although this was the same black pickup that had pulled up front of the fund raiser and told police they were there to pickup Miller. The a man later came out form the fund raiser and told the pickup to go around to the alleyway.

Why can't we actually have honest politicians, who are upfront, and straight forward? Why does it always have to be pulling teeth? Its not like people aren't going to find out eventually, hiding it just makes the problems bigger. This is often a lesson most people are taught at a young age. That coming forward is better than hiding the truth and being exposed later. Perhaps this is a lesson Mr. Miller never learned. You can't avoid the media, you shouldn't avoid the media. Despite all the accusations that the media is pushing a leftist agenda, the only thing worse than relying on only the media from our information would be only relying on Joe Miller's Campaign.

Am I being to judgmental of Mr. Miller? Unfair? I don't think so. I would hope that most voters would approach his avoidance of the media and failure to file simple (yet important) forms to be suspicious at least.

Feel free to comment with your thoughts. You can read a complete story here.

2 comments:

  1. Its amazing what people will do for influence. I really regret that we have no way to remove someone from office aside from an extremely difficult and drawn out recall process.

    ReplyDelete