Gov defends lobby group
working out of her officeThe organization has been pushing
her plan to reform education
Gov. Linda Lingle yesterday brushed aside criticism about her use of state resources to support a nonprofit corporation lobbying for her education initiatives, saying an ethics complaint filed against her was a diversion to deflect attention from "fake reform."
CORRECTION
Thursday, April 15, 2003>> Robert Fellmeth is a University of San Diego law professor. His last name was misspelled in a Page A3 article yesterday.
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Lingle's comments came a day after a public-school librarian filed a complaint with the state Ethics Commission over the Lingle administration's creation of a private nonprofit corporation, housed in the Governor's Office, to solicit donations to promote her education reform proposals.
The arrangement appears to violate state ethics laws.
The Republican governor said her office would submit a response to the commission within 10 days, but she said the complaint was "just a diversion for people who don't want to focus on the fake reform."
That was a reference to the Democrat-controlled Legislature's reform initiatives, which differ significantly from what Lingle is pushing. The governor's plan to break up the statewide Board of Education into several local boards was shot down again yesterday in both legislative houses, effectively killing the proposal for this year.
Citizens Achieving Reform in Education was formed by Lingle as an advisory group in October, but by the start of the legislative session in January it had become a private nonprofit organization, supported by administration employees. It also registered with the state as a political action committee and has paid for a series of radio commercials urging people to call legislators to support Lingle's reforms.
"Obviously we thought it was correct," Lingle said of the arrangement. "It was done in public, nothing was hidden, the Web site is public, the documents are public. We thought it was a great public-private partnership."
But ethics experts contacted by the Star-Bulletin panned the arrangement, saying taxpayer resources shouldn't support a private entity pushing a particular point of view.
"I don't think she should be operating that out of the Governor's Office," said Robert Fellneth, a University of San Diego law professor. "It's not smart at all. This isn't brain surgery."
Like Lingle, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is using private nonprofit 501(c)4 organizations -- so-named after the federal rules that give them tax-exempt status -- to support his initiatives, Fellneth said. The key difference, he added, is that Schwarzenegger isn't staffing them with public workers or housing them in state offices.
"He's got better legal advice," Fellneth said.
Lingle said her administration would evaluate the issues raised by the ethics complaint.
Reporter Richard Borreca contributed to this report.
