18 March 2008

is representative herbert dixon's hb344 self-serving?

so, we were perusing the state legislature website looking to see if representative herbert dixon had filed his cyntreniks/hotel bentley/alexander fulton hotel tax increment financing (TIF) bill, as of the time of this post he hasnt - but another bill of his, hb344, caught our eye.

hb344 is a simple two page bill that "authorizes school boards to provide group health insurance coverage to certain former school board members...who served at least ten consecutive years and who participated in the group insurance program as school board members for at least ten years..."

we checked representative dixon's website since he was a longtime member of the rapides parish school board, and sure enough, according to the google cache of herbertdixon.com [screen grab] representative dixon was a member of the rapides parish school for fourteen years. in fact, according to the resolution of the rapides parish school board, representative dixon resigned from the rapides parish school board on 31 december 2007. this was after he was elected to the state house from district 26 on 20 october 2007. so representative dixon effectively moved from the rapides parish school board to the state house.

maybe its just us but it would seem just from a common sense standpoint that to avoid even the hint of an appearance of impropriety, that if you had a bill that could personally benefit yourself, that you would have someone else - not connected with that particular agency, industry, etc. file it for you.

EXTERNAL LINK