I don’t know much about Republican Assembly Member Tim Leslie (AD-04).  But I don’t think I really need to know much more than I learned just based on this SacBee Op-Ed he penned defending John Doolittle’s habit of skimming 15% of campaign contributions by hiring his wife as a commission-based fundraiser. 

I think just a couple paragraphs will do:

While the shear [sic] numbers of negative stories is enough to raise questions, even more disturbing is how important facts are often left out or misrepresented. There is no better example of this than The Bee’s most recent editorial “Questionable practices,” which attacked John’s wife, Julie, for earning a salary for the hard work she performs for John.

In its indictment of Doolittle, The Bee comes to the conclusion that “members of Congress, their spouses and children should not benefit financially from money given to their campaigns.” Fair enough. However, then the editorial goes on to only condemn Doolittle for this practice and fails to mention the names of the more than 50 members of Congress who also employ family members in a similar way.

And how many other members of Congress pay their spouse and therefore themselves (California is a community property state) based on how much in the way of campaign contributions they collect?  I’m not a fan of salaried family members paid out of campaign contributions or government funds, but a percentage kickback? 

Everyone who’s an outsider knows that the practice of contributions for access and the private financing of campaigns amounts to legalized bribery.  Doolittle (like the rest of the Tom DeLay Rat PAC) is unusual in that he helped himself directly to some the contributions.

Leslie’s defense of this practice makes one want to look into Mr. Leslie’s own campaign finance practices.