Other views: The culture of corruption blows into North Dakota

[Judi Lynn]

Other views: The culture of corruption blows into North Dakota
By Charlie Barber,
Published Sunday, October 30, 2005
Mother Nature is not the only source of ill winds these days.

There’s quite the political tempest going on right now in Washington, D.C., with all the indictments and investigations. Corruption in government is what some are calling it. Others have equally accurate, though nastier, names for it. However, it wasn’t too long ago we had a few investigations blowing across our own state. And we don’t seem to be running out of news of further scandals either.

In 2001, Gov. John Hoeven was caught on the wrong side of the legal track, holding a fundraiser on a posh, private Burlington-Northern railroad car, a corporate contribution to his campaign that was illegal and that he didn’t report. A member of his campaign staff was later convicted of forging documents in an attempt to cover it up. It caught up with him in 2002. Although Hoeven was not charged with a crime, and public memory of this appearance of impropriety did not last long enough to hurt him in 2004, it still caused a blustery 2002 winter in North Dakota politics.

Last August, former North Dakota Republican State chairman John T. Korsmo was forced to resign as Chairman of the Home Loan Bank Board. He lost his license to practice law for lying to the FBI about his involvement in a fundraiser for North Dakota Republican Rick Clayburgh’s congressional campaign. He was the highest ranking North Dakota Republican appointed to federal office by President George W. Bush.

Earlier this October, we are informed by Janell Cole of The Forum (Oct. 23) five Republican legislators – Jim Kasper, Bette Grande, Ron Iverson and Blair Thoreson of Fargo, and Mark Dorsch of Bismarck – took “a four-day, all-expenses paid trip to Antigua earlier this month on an unofficial trade mission,” re: “Internet gaming and the development of a corresponding banking relationship with the Bank of North Dakota.” Unlike other less-publicized and public-spirited North Dakotans, these Republican state House legislators were likely not down in the Caribbean area to help out in hurricane relief. Much more plausibly they were planning to help yet another outside corporation – like Websmart – relieve North Dakotans of their hard-earned money.

Although not the magnitude of what’s going on in Washington, corruption has blown across the plains in recent years, and members of the North Dakota Republican Party have been culprits in this culture of corruption. Might I please remind the self-righteous among Republicans that a “culture of corruption” is not a “family value”?
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http://www.in-forum.com/articles/index.cfm?id=107087§ion=Opinion
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[acmavm]

1. The corruption is party wide. The nastiest thing you can say about

someone nowdays is "Ewwwww, that's just so Republican."

[rpannier]

2. Another example of

crminalizing politics...ohhhhh..sorry. Caught up in the pukie talking points again.


We'll stop criminalizing politics, when the politicians stop committing crimes.