Another legislative journey

First it was Crenshaw's Korean Adventure. Now we have Dawson's South African Sleazefest.

Florida state senator Mandy Dawson, from Fort Lauderdale, is accused of directly soliciting personal donation from state lobbyists to pay for her trip to South Africa.

I say accused because that's the typical journalistic ass-covering term, but there's no accusation here. There are facts. Dawson wrote a letter directly to lobbyists on official Senate letterhead. She knew at the time that what she was doing was sketchy at best, blatantly illegal at worst. Allow me to quote from the story and letter:

"I need to raise funds to help defray the cost. As a longtime supporter of mine, I am asking if you would consider helping to sponsor my trip," Dawson wrote. "Due to ethics regulations, the check should be made out to the FL Caucus of Black State Legislators."

Uh-huh. There has been much handwringing in the Senate over this. The Senate President, Tom Lee, wants to have his own investigation apart from the Ethics Committee (wise move, since morally-challenged Mandy sits on that committee). Members of the state legislature's black caucus, many of whom went on the same trip and paid for it out of campaign or personal funds, expressed varying degrees of shock and annoyance. But nobody seemed to think of the obvious solution.

Throw Mandy Dawson out of the State Senate. Suspend the licenses of every lobbyist who responded to her letter with funds. And publish a new ethics rule stating that any future attempts to seek donations from lobbyists for any reason will result in immediate impeachment hearings. Lobbyists ought to give up the right to donate money to ANY politician they might lobby, free speech be damned. I gave up the right to say nasty things about the president when I signed up for the military; lobbyists are getting paid a hell of a lot more than I am and should be happy to give up the right to donate money to the people they lobby. I'm sick of this shit.

People ask me why I no longer want to get involved in politics. Mandy Dawson, Ander Crenshaw, Joe Spratt, Jim DeMint, George W. Bush, Ari Fleischer, Bill Janklow, John Kerry... I'm sorry, do I need to go on or is the point made?

I used to complain a lot about how the incessant media glare makes decent people want to stay out of politics. But you know what? People like Mandy Dawson deserve to be shamed out of office. Good riddance. I'd rather have anarchy than a government of these thieves and liars.