Minnis' Israel Junket--Or How The Culture Of GOP Corruption Lurches Forward

I would be remiss if I didn't mention the Minnis trip to Israel in which she says "Oops we did it again".

High fives to Terry Olson and Rob Salzman who were on this yesterday.

Interestingly, I was tipped on this information about Minnis last week, immediately following the Maui-Gate (whoever came up with that label should be drawn and quartered--yech) brouhaha.

I made some calls--specifically to some reporters that I knew might be on the story. I was told that Minnis wasn't required to report this trip until a full year after it was taken--which would give her until Spring 2007 to do so. That's the last time I take state legislative ethics rules advice from reporters. Bah.

Minnis says she came forward because she "went back and looked at her travel records because of recent disclosures that six legislators and one former lawmaker failed to report that beer and wine distributors had paid more than $2,000 for each of them to attend conferences in Hawaii in 2002 and 2004."

I think that's crap.

I'm willing to bet that Minnis was hearing scuttle about bloggers and reporters making inquiries about this trip and knew she'd better cop to it before she was outed.