Many of our readers have probably been wondering why we have not gotten on the bandwagon of the alleged sordid affair between Senator Jim Guthrie of District 28 and Representative Christy Perry of District 11 which has been the subject of several internet stories. Or maybe you just don’t know about it because it hasn’t been picked up by the “Liberal Media Muppets”. Remember it is election time, and the media makes lots of money from political advertisements. What people do in their personal lives is really none of our business, but when it involves members of our legislature the public is entitled to know if there is a problem, and that is why we are bringing this to your attention.
When you are elected as a representative to our state legislature, it is important that those elected have the highest ethical and moral standards and need to be beyond reproach. We all know that everyone makes mistakes and strays or uses bad judgement but what has happened here is a breakdown of those high moral and ethical standards. What we have here are two married legislators that allegedly have been meeting secretly for some time and having an affair in violation of their marriage vows. If these two legislators didn’t mind breaking sacred marriage vows, the question is would they mind breaking their oath of office?
We are not going to pass judgement on their personal relationship as each of them will pay a price both publically and privately for their indiscretions, but our concern is one which we have always had about the people we elect to serve us. The question is are they of good character or are they just characters playing a role to get elected to office. The other problem we have is we don’t know if any of the alleged expenses associated with this liaison between these two legislators have been charged to the state. At the least there should be an investigation into the expenditures of both parties about potential improprieties of monies charged to or reimbursed by the state.
It is not always easy to know if we are electing the right person to represent us because we do not do enough background checking into their past history, after all they are not seeking a top secret security clearance. Personal background checks should be a part of the scrutiny of anyone running for office and that is usually done by their opponents or the press; however, many times there are no opponents in our state because it is 68% republican, and they are always well funded and we know the press will only investigate if it benefits them.
When you don’t have any checks and balances it is difficult at best for the public to get a good picture of who they are electing, and many times it is the public that is just not interested in finding out. In many of our districts we only have a 33% turnout or less in our elections which is hardly a show of caring about who is elected by the voters. If we want to have good government and good legislators, the public needs to care and get involved. They need to find out who they are voting for, and if those running for election are worthy of their trust.
If true, what Senator Guthrie and Representative Perry did was to show us and their spouses that they are not worthy of our trust and should resign from their respective offices immediately. These are not the leaders that we expected them to be, and they are certainly not models for our children to look up to. Let’s hope that they retain enough respect for the public office they hold and extricate themselves quickly and quietly from their legislative offices.
