Comparing Yost’s and DeWine’s Responses to OH AG Cordray’s Indefensible Move
Yost, at his web site (excerpted; read the whole thing; bold after title is mine):
Lowering the Price of Perfidy
The taxpayer-funded defense of three rogue state workers who invaded Joe the Plumber’s privacy sends the wrong message to other state workers: don’t worry, we’ll take care of you if you get caught. It’s more than just an individual wrong: it degrades our government and encourages bad behavior.
…. The attorney general has a duty to defend state workers who are sued.
…. But the law lets the attorney general off the hook when state workers go rogue. When the worker is doing stuff that’s not part of the job – say, searching for politically embarrassing material in confidential government databases – the attorney general “shall not” represent them. The same rule applies for workers who act with malice, or recklessly. No free legal defense.
“Shall not” is not my phrase – it’s what the law says.
When a state worker makes a mistake, the government should defend them. Mistakes happen — but what happened to Joe the Plumber wasn’t a mistake. It was a deliberate act, with an attempted cover-up.
…. The threat of big trouble and legal bills is a deterrent to such bad behavior, and it should be. A free, taxpayer-funded defense lowers the price of perfidy for others who would loyally do the dirty work of their political masters. That price doesn’t need to be lowered — it’s low enough already.
DeWine, at his web site:
….. ….. ….. …..
The story’s three days old. Where’s Mike?
Yeah, he commented on Cordray’s move in the DDN article:
“These people violated the privacy of an Ohio citizen and they did it, it would appear, to advance a partisan political campaign, and I think taxpayers will be shocked to find that their tax dollars are going to defend them,” said Mike DeWine of Cedarville, the former U.S. senator and Greene County prosecutor.
But so did Yost:
“It’s an outrageous use of taxpayer money to defend the invasion of a citizen’s privacy.”
Yost even does the sound-bite thing better than DeWine, who supposedly has had years of practice.
DeWine has begun the process of receiving what from all appearances will be serial spankings at county endorsement meetings; the first of what I expect will be many was administered by Butler County last week (BizzyBlog coverage and commentary is here). Yost got the county’s endorsement by a 68%-32% margin.
DeWine’s virtual non-presence on the web (a home page, a bio, and a PDF of his candidacy announcement) contrasts sharply with Yost’s frequently-updated, well-presented effort.
Yost has been following the state employee-orchestrated Joe the Plumber perfidy almost since it began and campaigning aggressively while carrying out his prosecutorial duties in Delaware County. DeWine has been virtually silent and schmoozing big-bucks people (not very successfully, as I understand it) while teaching a college course or two. I think that’s a precursive indicator of who will work harder as a sensible, principled conservative representing the interests of the Buckeye State’s citizens.
As to Cordray, an opposition party with spine would be pursuing impeachment, or at least censure, or at least a legislative resolution, or …. at least issue a press release …. or even put up a blog post. But in this state, there’s only ORPINO, the Ohio Republican Party In Name Only. Thus, there has been no response.
[...] Good question. [...]
Pingback by On Rich Cordray Defending Joe the Plumber’s Snoopers, Where is the Ohio GOP and Mike DeWine? | Right Ohio — November 18, 2009 @ 12:32 pm
The ORP’s reason for favoring DeWhine (the other one) is simply “money.”
And the more I think about it, the more bogus that argument gets…
In fact, if they finagle DeWine in as the 2010 AG candidate, Cordray will beat him to a pulp without having to spend a dime; and everyone (including Cordray) knows it, leaving the very situation against which they are ostensibly posturing.
They get more and more like liberals every day.
They make things 100x more difficult than need be.
Comment by Rose — November 18, 2009 @ 4:41 pm
Don’t have time to read the linked articles. Here are some simple guidelines that I think may apply to Joe’s privacy issue.
The AG’s first obligation is the defend the State of Ohio. He would when, and we the taxpayer wouldn’t end up paying the Plumber, IF the State of Ohio had adequate training courses for its employees on Privacy Act, and applied its training with negative personnel performance reviews for anyone with a violation. Repeated violations would be just cause for dismissal.
If the AG is defending the employees, a possible interpretation is that he (after a documented internal investigation) has decided that the State of Ohio will be pleading guilty. (Meanwhile, the case is in the Discovery phase, or something such, and official pleadings have not been made.)
More comments could be made of if an employee only viewed Joe’s records, versus viewed and then also disclosed Joe’s records.
And another phase of the case is how much in damages. The doctrine of “to make whole” applies, e.g. Joe gets reimbursed for all his lawyer fees and something for reputation damages. Punitive damages, no idea what is criteria for payments there.
If one or more of the employee(s) disclosed ‘with an intent to harm’ Joe, then not sure to what extent that employee(s) is personal liability; losing qualified immunity. Intent is very hard to prove/disprove. If intent is provable to a grand jury, then AG should be pursuing criminal charges against the retaliator employee.
INAL. Just my preliminary thoughts, C
Comment by Cornfed — November 19, 2009 @ 7:28 am