Friday, January 30, 2009

GAB Wastes Taxpayer Dollars in Indefensible Lawsuit

Well...

The state Justice Department’s lawsuit against state election officials has cost the agency only about $720, Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen said in a letter to lawmakers Wednesday.

But Van Hollen, a Republican, reiterated the agency didn’t keep track of attorney hours spent on the lawsuit because there was no chance of recovering legal fees in the suit.

[...]

He also noted that DOJ records show the board spent $50,000 to hire an outside lawyer to defend it, even though it could have saved every penny if it had just complied with the law.

As Dad29 says:

The GAB, which:

1) Refused to comply with the law; and
2) Caused the State Attorney General to sue them to force compliance; and
3) Agreed that the State Attorney General was correct (after the election, of course)

...spent $50K of taxpayer money to defend their indefensible position.

While Pocan wants to bash Van Hollen, remember that he was correct on the law and the GAB acknowledged as much when they settled and decided to follow the law.  If the GAB had just done its job in the first place, Doyle would have $50K more to plug the budget deficit - not to mention the election would have been cleaner.

(2) Comments
Posted by Owen at 1510 hrs


  1. C’mon, what’s $50K of the taxpayer’s money to ensure that Democrats had every available vote they needed to safely get elected…if you’re a little short, you end up with a contest like Minnesota.

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on January 31, 2009 at 1547 hrs


  2. Any bets on whether GAB follows the law next election cycle, or just blows it off until after that one too? With full, albeit tacit, approval of the “watchdog” Fourth Estate of course.

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on January 31, 2009 at 1625 hrs


Commenting is not available in this channel entry.