It was pointed out to me that I have ignored the PWEA Scandal, which was also broken by the gents over at Too Conservative.
"Riley, Not O'Reilly" has a good post over there today. I especially like his comment about Prince William County Attorney Paul Ebert "blowing the Bobbitt case." This is a family blog over here, but that's still good comedy.
Anyhow, seems to me that the PWEA people made a very stupid mistake by encouraging members to send their political questionnaires to a union rep through the mail. In fact, it violated school system policy and several laws separating campaigning from public workplaces. It's not surprising, though, since many public union reps - including those from the Fraternal Order of Police and the International Association of Fire Fighters - treat their jobs as union representative as inextricably entwined with the job we as the taxpayers pay them to do.
These PWEA union guys need a news flash that we're not paying them to work for their own self-aggrandizement. I may agree that we should pay our public safety guys more, I may even admit that our teachers are underpaid. But don't use the time you're supposed to be spending teaching my kids and use it so you can get better retirement pay than any other state employee or more "planning time." You do that on your own time, not mine.
Do I think Paul Ebert ought to go after them? Heck yeah. They advocated breaking County policy and the law, and even if they just plain goofed, ignorance of the law is no excuse. Do I think Ebert will go after them like he did Steve Chapman? No, I don't. And I agree with Riley that this smells very bad - especially since Ebert gave Hilda Barg's campaign a very large donation.
