Did Palin illegally campaign from Wasilla mayor's office?

[RamboLiberal]

While Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin at least knows how to send e-mails -- unlike the man at the top of the ticket -- her sloppiness or ignorance of laws controlling what can and cannot be sent on accounts paid for by taxpayers is causing more problems for the Alaska governor and former small-town mayor.

Mother Jones reporter David Corn, who's been owning the Palin e-mail malfeasance beat lately, provides new evidence Friday that Palin broke the law by sending political e-mails when she campaigned for lieutenant governor from her official e-mail account provided by the city of Wasilla, where she was mayor at the time.

In a June 11, 2002 email to Randy Ruedrich--sent from her [e-mail] account--Palin asked if the state Republican Party would disseminate notices for her fundraisers. "I have a heckuva' lot of notices I would love to be distributed to all the lists because I'm not networked into all the valuable distribution lists that other candidates may be networked into," she wrote. "Can you do that for me?"

In a July 2, 2002 email to Ruedrich--with the subject line reading "right to life endorsements"--Palin complained that Alaska Right to Life, the state's leading anti-abortion rights outfit, had not endorsed her in the lieutenant governor's race. "Randy," she wrote, "I was allowed to 'vent' via letter to the RTL Board re: their decision to not co-endorse pro-life candidates in the Lt. Gov. race. Man, I am disappointed." And the day before the Republican primary, in an August 26, 2002 email to Eddie Grasser, a leader of the Alaska Outdoor Council, a lobby for hunters and firearms owners, Palin expressed her disappointment at not receiving the AOC endorsement. She pointed out that she was a "lifetime member of the NRA" and a "recipient of its "Defender of the 2nd Amendment Award." In the email--which promoted her campaign positions--she objected to the process used by the AOC in endorsing one of her opponents in the Republican primary contest: "The AOC stated the endorsement was based on candidates' answers to the AOC's 'extensive questionnaire'...but in reality there was no questionnaire sent to Lt. Gov. candidates." She asked if she could "use the AOC's email address book to remind our members of my positions." And she encouraged Grasser to visit her campaign website. This email--also sent via her official Wasilla city account--was addressed to over 300 people in addition to Grasser. (In the GOP primary, Palin placed second in a field of five.)

Under Alaska state law, an officer of a municipality "may not use money held by the entity to influence the outcome of the election of a candidate to a state or municipal office." Asked whether this prohibition would cover a mayor using an official email account to promote and advance her own campaign, Holly Hill, the executive director of the Alaska Public Offices Commission, referred me to a decision issued by the commission this past July. The case involved a mayor of Unalaska named Shirley Marquardt. In 2007, she had sent an email to a city consultant and the city manager, noting who would be running against her for mayor. The commission ruled that this message had been more personal than political. But in its decision, the commission declared that the Alaska law prohibiting a municipal official from using public funds for partisan actions "covers a publicly-owned e-mail system."

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Did_Palin_illegally_campaign_from_Wasilla_0912.html

[Blue Meany]

1. This was well-documented by The Anchorage Times

From the Anchorage Times July 21, 2006:

"While Sarah Palin tries to spin herself into a legitimate candidate for governor, the past becomes her mortal enemy...

She ran much of her failed 2002 campaign for lieutenant governor from her office as mayor of the tiny community of Wasilla. Records and interviews indicate she used city time, city telephones, city employees and city computers in the effort to one extent or another...

She actually listed the Wasilla City Hall fax telephone number, 373-9096, on her Alaska Public Offices Commission candidate registration form for "candidate information." She used her mayor's e-mail address, [e-mail], for "campaign chairperson" on the same form...

Records show Palin called on city telephones, at all hours of the work day, supporters, contributors, media contacts, the guy who made her political campaign media buys and at least one company that does a lot of election work.

A search through surviving city computer records indicates campaign materials were ordered from City Hall and even were to be delivered there, "Attn: Mayor Palin." She had city employees on city- paid time arrange travel to benefit her campaign and perform other campaign tasks. Then, there are accounts of her doing everything from cobbling up campaign signs to drumming up campaign money from her office. The city's business in the last few months of the campaign, many observers say, seemed to be the very last thing on her mind. To top it off, there is no indication she repaid the city for the incidental expenses the city incurred...

Fast forward. Palin nowadays is desperate to be a "new" politician -- honest, forthright, bright, a better choice. Frankly, she is just bad news with a nice hair-do...

When you strip away her halo, the one preserved by a press corps that has, in large part, given her a free ride, she looks like any other politician -- but with less experience, less knowledge and less sense. Sarah Palin is the least qualified of the major gubernatorial candidates."

[LiberalFighter]

2. YES