by D. Cupples | Most lawyers are familiar with the notion of avoiding even the appearance of impropriety. It's a cliche in political circles, too. That said, I don't understand why Barack Obama publicly pushed to get grants from the State of Illinois for a political donor (and paying client). The Los Angeles Times reports:
"After an unsuccessful campaign for Congress in 2000, Illinois state Sen. Barack Obama faced serious financial pressure: numerous debts, limited cash and a law practice he had neglected for a year. Help arrived in early 2001 from a significant new legal client -- a longtime political supporter."
"Chicago entrepreneur Robert Blackwell Jr. paid Obama an $8,000-a-month retainer to give legal advice to his growing technology firm, Electronic Knowledge Interchange. It allowed Obama to supplement his $58,000 part-time state Senate salary for over a year with regular payments from Blackwell's firm that eventually totaled $112,000.
"A few months after receiving his final payment from EKI, Obama sent a request on state Senate letterhead urging Illinois officials to provide a $50,000 tourism promotion grant to another Blackwell company, Killerspin.
"Killerspin specializes in table tennis, running tournaments nationwide and selling its own line of equipment and apparel and DVD recordings of the competitions. With support from Obama, other state officials and an Obama aide who went to work part time for Killerspin, the company eventually obtained $320,000 in state grants between 2002 and 2004 to subsidize its tournaments."
"Obama's staff said the senator advocated only for the first year's grant -- which ended up being $20,000, not $50,000. The day after Obama wrote his letter urging the awarding of the state funds, Obama's U.S. Senate campaign received a $1,000 donation from Blackwell." (LA Times)
Maybe it's a coincidence. Maybe Sen. Obama simply believed that ping-pong tournaments were a good use of his constituents' tax dollars.
Maybe urging elected officials to give grants to donors didn't strike a younger Obama as odd because that's just how Chicago people did the people's business.
Maybe, it hadn't occurred to Obama, back in 2002, that he would be running for president in 2008 -- and fashioning as major selling points the notion that he is a champion of ethics, is divorced from special-interest money, and is beyond old-style politics.
It'll be interesting to see whether many mainstream media outlets pick up this LA Times story. Memeorandum has commentary.
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Ohhhh I see, we want to be sure McCain is President, my bad
Posted by: Sparky Duck | April 28, 2008 at 10:51 PM
As you say, all we have here is the appearance of inpropriety. There's nothing actually here. Maybe he wasn't in a position to avoid the appearance of inpropriety because he was, you know, broke?
But Obama's the elitist in this campaign, not the two multimillionaires. God bless America.
Posted by: Adam | April 30, 2008 at 01:36 PM
Adam,
Seasoned lawyers politicians (esp. those who plan to run for national office should know better than to create the APPEARANCE of a quid pro quo.
What's your problem with what I wrote?
Posted by: D. Cupples | May 01, 2008 at 11:50 AM
Adam,
I didn't answer your question.
He could have avoided the APPEARANCE of impropriety by telling his former boss (or client) that he CANNOT write a letter on his behalf (asking for state $), precisely because that would create the appearance of a conflict of interest.
As a lawyer (and one who is LESS experienced than Obama by virtue of having gone to law school later than he did), I can tell you that avoiding the appearance is Lawyering 101.
Posted by: D. Cupples | May 01, 2008 at 12:03 PM