Should Legislators use campaign pages to boost their business?

Pat Powers

Here’s a new quandary posed by the digital age:

State Rep. Lynne DiSanto yesterday started hawking her Real Estate business on her political campaign page saying “if you like what I stand for, please consider doing business with me.”

(Which is the opposite of when people were boycotting her for what she stood for.)

Now, far be it from me to criticize a little cross self-promotion. But when it involves an officeholder coming up to the line of overtly using their office for increasing their client base, for some it skirts some ethical boundaries.

Should part-time Legislators be able to use their campaign pages & resources to boost their business prospects?

Your thoughts?

6 thoughts on “Should Legislators use campaign pages to boost their business?”

  2. It crosses serious ethical lines of using the power of an office for profit.

  4. While I do think this is improper, I won’t go so far as accusing DiSanto of an ethic violation for one simple reason- The violation would occur if she were to take a listing and the person would expect a favor/she grants one.

    I will accuse her of gross stupidity for these reasons:

    1) In the event someone who supports her* had a house to sell, this probably is superfluous to her getting the listing. *Not a big universe because not that many hands change hands in a year and the number of people who support her AND would entrust the sale of their house to someone other than expecting the best price is a small universe.

    2) It isn’t always about avoiding conflict but also avoiding the appearance of “being for sale.” Go back to my original comment about when it would be an actual conflict of interest. Now, if a supporter gives her a listing, she makes a big commission, and later this supporter asks her to pursue/act on a particular issue, even if she was inclined to do it anyway, when she does do her inclination, she is now open to the charge of an ethical violation.

    3) One doesn’t have to think too hard to jump to the conclusion this is her offering her office’s powers in exchange for a listing. As I said before, if it weren’t so stupid, it would be unethical. Stupidity is not a crime.

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