Since the news broke last week that a longtime member of Congress had violated anti-nepotism rules in awarding thousands of dollars in college scholarships to her relatives, the congresswoman, Eddie Bernice Johnson, a Texas Democrat, has insisted that the violations were inadvertent and resulted from staff errors. Today, however, The Dallas Morning News, which had the original scoop, reported that Representative Johnson had sent letters to the source of the scholarships, the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, asking that the money be given directly to her two grandsons and two great-nephews, instead of to the colleges they attended. The letters, the News reported, “suggest a far more direct role” for Ms. Johnson in the scholarship awards than she has hitherto acknowledged.
RSS
Follow The Ticker through your favorite RSS reader.
5 Responses to U.S. Congresswoman Asked That Scholarship Money Be Sent Directly to Relatives
ray31 - September 9, 2010 at 10:02 am
Change….Hope….
davi2665 - September 9, 2010 at 10:47 am
Change….Hope….Fraud….Abuse….Lies
studycommittee - September 9, 2010 at 11:05 am
You forgot misconduct
jakarlson - September 9, 2010 at 4:40 pm
Has anyone called for her resignation? What are people in her district saying? I would think they would be ashamed that they voted her into office. And this isn’t the first time she has abused the scholarship program according to news sources.
jtran8424 - September 10, 2010 at 12:25 pm
Well, it is a sad thing when there are so many really needy and really hard working, scholarly students who have gotten into honors programs in their high schools, study half the night, most the weekend to get those International Baccalaureate or Advanced Placement Honors because their families DON’T have money so they work their hardest to DESERVE a scholarship. I don’t think it is a party problem, I do think it is a personal ethics problem and I would hope that she would step down as an example to her constiuency and return the money as an example to her family. That would be the only honest thing to do. There may be some legal consequences also. I would expect community service. It IS disgraceful for any politician to use their position for personal interest. She also needs to make a public apology to her staff for trying to blame them for her personal lack of ethics, that is about the lowest you can go. You make a moral error, you apologize and take the consequences. This is what we teach children in school. To try to involve others, blame others is the worst thing that you can do. She has set very low moral and ethical expectations for her own grandsons and great nephews, what kind of lesson from this have they learned? If you get caught, blame it on your staff? If the money has already been sent, then the money NEEDS TO BE SENT BACK. It was not gotten ethically or legally, and that is the lesson her young relatives need to learn. It is paramount to stealing, and stealing is immoral. The teachers do their best to teach children character building. But when relatives show such a deep lack of ethics, we teachers cannot turn them around. We try. But, this is about the worst example of ethics and not even accepting blame for what she did. I would make sure she was restrained from making presentations on any elementary school in the state of Florida for the possibility that the child may have learned about what she did and make the connection and question why she is at their school, as I certainly would.