So Assemblyman Scott Sibley has drawn an opponent — well, almost. Attorney Greg Whicker tells the Review-Journal he’s almost 100 percent positive he’ll run, apparently because Sibley didn’t call him back.
“That really irked me,” said Whicker, who used to work at the attorney general’s office. “It’s one thing to blow off constituents. It’s another to blow off a deputy attorney general.”
There you have it, folks: Constituents are the little people, but a lawyer with a badge? That person should rocket to the top of your call list. (Right under the big campaign contributors, that is.)
Whicker has filed a complaint with the state Ethics Commission over Sibley’s abuse of his role as a process server, which drew a $100,000 judgment in a civil action recently. But Whicker, who we presume went to law school, neglected to look up the law: The incident in question happened in 2004, before Sibley ever entered politics. And that means the commission has no jurisdiction to investigate the complaint.
(We really, really hope that Whicker wasn’t working in the AG’s appellate division.)
“He was an assemblyman when he was fined. It is like if I committed murder 10 years ago and now I want to be governor. The murder is not going to affect my ability to be governor?” Whicker said.
Um, no, it’s really not like murder, counselor, as you should well know. In fact, a civil verdict in a process-serving case is pretty damn far from murder. And to argue that the Ethics Commission should take up the case anyway still turns the law on its head. (See the well-known case of Hyperbolic Desperate Politician v. Reality, 123 P2nd 533 [Cal. 1967].)
And, while we’re not out to defend Sibley, we also think his acceptance of Rolling Stones concert tickets is not a violation of law. (That’s not the same thing as saying he should have done it; we don’t.) But Sibley — unlike some others — reported the gifts as required. Again, a political issue, not a legal one.
Whicker should keep his fight where it belongs: In the court of public opinion, not the hearing rooms of the Ethics Commission.
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