Monday, August 03, 2009
Editorial: There oughta be a law against that
A delegate sponsors funding for ODU, and the school then hires him with that money.
From the RoundTable blog
Read the latest entries
What is ethical and what is legal are not the same. One can follow all of the rules and still violate moral standards.
Del. Phillip Hamilton of Newport News, who is chairman of the House Appropriations Committee and is one of the most powerful members of the General Assembly, has slipped into an unethical but legal situation, even if he does not admit it.
In 2007, he sponsored a bill to allocate state funds to start the Center for Teacher Quality and Educational Leadership at Old Dominion University. It passed, and since then the center has received $500,000 a year in state funding.
The problem is that right after the center opened, Old Dominion University hired Hamilton as its coordinator, paying him $40,000 per year.
That sure looks fishy, but everything is on the up-and-up.
State laws forbid nothing that has happened. Hamilton was not working for ODU when he sponsored the original bill, and there is no evidence that he had worked out some quid pro quo with the school.
Hamilton has appeared ethical since he landed the job, too. He has not introduced any legislation for the center since, and he has dutifully reported the relationship so that voters can factor it into their decision at the ballot box.
He also is qualified for the job. He had a distinguished career as a teacher and school administrator and still works for the Newport News school system.
Maybe he or ODU should have realized it would still look bad, but a lack of sensitivity to public opinion is not a crime.
No, the problem here is that this was legal at all. Here is a powerful lawmaker who lands a wad of cash for a state university that turns around and hands some of the cash right back to him. When lawmakers convene next year, they should revise the laws that allow something so seemingly unethical to happen.
