State Sen. Rhonda Fields has a conflict of interest and should have recused herself from voting against an audit of how the state is spending the 9/11 federal fund, including payouts to a high-price attorney to defend John Hickenlooper against ethics charges.
Fields’ daughter, Maisha, works for Hickenlooper’s U.S. Senate campaign, which would obviously be damaged if such an audit went forward.
What we know already, Hickenlooper is entitled to legal defense as the former governor.
What we also know now, that legal defense should be a state government lawyer who gets paid $112 an hour, not the private attorney Hick retained who is billing taxpayers $525 an hour.
CBS 4’s Shaun Boyd tracked down Fields to ask about her vote, which the Aurora Democrat says was based on her own “very good decisions and judgments for the state of Colorado.”
Fields thinks there is already enough fiscal transparency — which there is now, after media reports exposed a ton of waste and questionable spending.
How $146 million of taxpayer dollars is being spent simply isn’t that important, Fields concluded.
“This topic is just not all that important to me because people are struggling on all sides.”
Do you hear that Aurora voters? Stop bothering lawmakers with all this talk of responsible government spending, because Fields’s very good judgement has decided fiscal responsibility is just not important.
Fields had no conflict whatsoever in leading the effort to protect her daughter’s boss from an audit that could expose wrongdoing.
The Denver Post broke the stories about the wasteful spending, which in addition to Hick’s outrageous legal fees, includes other questionable spending by Hickenlooper including “$20,381 to a state-owned aircraft; $33,900 to consulting firms; $13,385 to a firm for a website touting Hikcenlooper’s (sic) legacy; $5,000 to the Civic Center Conservancy for an official function; and $2,500 to a four-star hotel in Cherry Creek for an official function.”