2008-06-25 Board of Ethics Minutes Regular Session

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NICHOLSON: My concern would be if a council person who had their photo on their stationery was going to send a letter to all their constituents and they're running for office. Then it would be very questionable. LUM: The councilmembers have to run every five minutes or so. JACOBSON: You might want to, if I can hint, maybe you won't want to have a general letter to constituents six months before an election period or that this —I've tried to think about this too, because 1 don't like to abuse the system. So in keeping maybe with the public service ad time schedule that this legislature has set up, that would make some sense. Also, one more limitation that I think might be important is that such a letter couldn't be used in a print ad. I mean, like I send a letter to somebody, I wouldn't want to have that letter used in a print ad saying here's a letter from Bob because that would tend to subvert it, I think. Let's say I wanted to put an ad out where I wrote a letter to Dan Inouye saying thank you for the six million dollars you threw my way, and then I ran that in an ad regarding what I'm doing for Council and why you should re -elect me because I'm so effective at prying money out of Dan Inouye. That would be a real problem and that sort of limitation, but 1 just respect your guys' judgment on this and that's why I'm here today. LUM: So, we could do something like not find it in violation with a caution to not— CHAIR: - -What about just not using it with constituents or- LUM:. - -with general mailings and print ads— CHAIR: - -I can understand the purpose between your different governmental functions, especially with your different governmental communications and what not- NICHOLSON: -- routine office communications. Routine communications from your office that are not sent to— CHAIR: - -but a smart lawyer will pick that apart, though. LUM: There also is a thing that if his constituents think it's a bad idea, they will vote him out so. JACOBSON: One more aspect, I think that if I start doing it and others would follow, which I wouldn't be surprised, it would tend to get sort of diluted. I mean if I get a picture, I mean if Bruce McClure decides to start putting his face on letterhead, which it's not too likely, he's a very humble man, but I think it starts to become more and more diluted as more people do it. It would lose its effectiveness as a campaign. That fear of mine 1 think would tend to fall a little bit. Maybe I'm wrong. NICHOLSON: But it seems to me it's appropriate for an elected official to do this, it would not be appropriate, I would think for regular— CHAIR: - -Well that's the thing, maybe we can limit it to elected officials- 13