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Government ethics committee

Saturday, September 15 at 2:00 PM

Allen Campbell of Colorado Springs writes:

If Governor Ritter really wanted to appoint a valid government ethics committee he would not have included government employees. Isn’t having government employees or officials investigating their own kind more than somewhat like having the fox guard the hen house? If ethic violations are the target of this committee and government officials and employees have been, as a group, more prone to questionable unethical actions, is having those like them as their judges any insurance those actions will be investigated to the fullist degree and legal means to remove those found guilty from their positions of public trust?
Somehow I think the deck is stacked against justice, in favor of ignoring ethical misbehavior. In any case, it is bad form at the very least, to have the inmates run the assylum. The public is by and large uninterested in the inside, routine dealings of political types but, when a politician apparently sides with those who have the money and some of it winds up in his/her pockets as a result of favoring the mercantile interests or political agendas of big money special interests, to the detriment of the publics best interests, the public will want, even demand, the heads of those involved, including those in charge of enforcing ethical behavior.
Better if Ritter had seen the potential pitfalls inherent in his choices before filling the committee with political foxes to guard the ethics hen house.

This letter has not been edited.

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