I agree with you. Brown should not be paid. All taxpayers should be outraged.
The same goes for John Kerry, yet it clearly is a partisan issue for most. Democrats do not care that Kerry was being paid when he should not have been paid. He never returned our money...
ohn Kerry, the Democratic Party's presumptive nominee for President of the
United States, has been taking advantage of American taxpayers - and he
should be ashamed of himself.
Title 2, Section 39, of the United States Code clearly states that "[t]he
Secretary of the Senate ... shall deduct from the [salary] of each Member
... the amount of his salary for each day that he has been absent from the
Senate ... unless such Member ... assigns as the reason for such absence the
sickness of himself or of some member of his family."
The plain and unambiguous meaning of this statute is that a Senator who
misses work doesn't get paid - just like ordinary Americans. Unfortunately,
the Secretary of the Senate, Ms. Emily Reynolds, has improperly, and
inappropriately, declined to carry out her statutory duty - i.e. to dock the
pay of Senators who miss work. When pressed, Ms. Reynolds explained, in a
response to a letter by David Keene of the Carmen Group, that since her
predecessors in the position failed to carry out the law, she won't either.
This reasoning is absurd - and unlawful.
An officer of the Senate is bound by the law as it applies to that officer.
When the law states that an officer of the Senate "shall" do something, that
officer is bound to carry out the mandate of the law. If individuals were
free to ignore the law as they pleased, our society would fall apart. The
Secretary of the Senate is no exception - she is not above the law. Her
failure to carry out the mandate of Title 2, Section 39 is a clear violation
of federal law. However, ultimate culpability does not end with Ms.
Reynolds.
Ignorance of the law, in American society, is never a valid defense to the
commission of an unlawful act - thus, all Americans are charged with
knowledge of the law. Lawyers, who are, ideally, learned in the law, should
be held to a higher standard; though it sounds like an oxymoron, they are
indeed held to a standard of lawyers' ethics.
A United States Senator, charged with promulgating the law, and especially a
Senator who is a lawyer, thus, must be held to the highest standard of legal
and ethical conduct. John Kerry is both a Senator and a lawyer. As such,
Senator Kerry is charged with knowledge of the law and must be held to the
highest standard of legal and ethical conduct. In this respect, Kerry is a
"miserable failure."
John Kerry is charged with knowing that the Secretary of the Senate is to
dock his pay when he fails to show up for work - and that there is no
exception in the law for campaign activities. Thus, any payment made to a
Senator in violation of Title 2, Section 39 is an illegal payment of funds
from the U.S. Treasury and, legally speaking, theft of taxpayer money - John
Kerry is presumed to know that these payments are illegal. Therefore, by
knowingly accepting these illegal payments, Senator Kerry himself is
breaking the law.
While, of course, this rationale applies to all Senators, John Kerry
warrants special condemnation: Senator Kerry is running for President and he
has the most dismal attendance record in the Senate; Kerry has been absent,
without valid excuse, 87 percent of the time this session! Ergo, John Kerry
is the most flagrant offender - and "everyone is doing it" is not a
reasonable excuse. Further, an ordinary American who is absent from their
job 87 percent of the time wouldn't merely be docked pay - that person would
be fired!
In the interest of restoring the rule of law, I have personally filed a
formal ethics complaint against both Senator Kerry and the Secretary of the
Senate with the Senate Select Committee on Ethics, which has jurisdiction
over this matter. It is quite sad that it takes the efforts of a mere law
student to force a candidate for the Presidency to obey the law that, if
successful, he will be sworn to uphold himself.
This matter draws yet another bright line between Senator Kerry and
President Bush. When then-Governor Bush ran for President, he declined to
accept his salary, as Governor, when he needed to campaign full time - even
though Texas law did not require him to do so. On the other hand, though
Unites States law requires Kerry not to accept his salary when he campaigns
full time and cannot be present in the Senate, Kerry has opted to accept his
salary illegally. |
