Newsom’s Double StandardPaul Hogarthbyline‚ Jul. 24‚ 2007Despite strong evidence against Supervisor Ed Jew, with most of his colleagues either urging him to resign or calling on the Mayor to take action, Gavin Newsom has remained aloof. In fact, the Mayor announced on Friday that the laws regarding a Supervisor’s residency and taking cash payments “need to be strengthened,” and asked the City Attorney to draft legislation to clarify the law. It’s an easy out for the Mayor – allowing him to express concern about what happened, without alienating the Asian-American community in a re-election year. But Newsom never tried to “fix loopholes” in the City’s Catastrophic Illness Program, after Dennis Herrera found nothing illegal about the Mayor’s girlfriend getting $10,000 in payments for alcohol abuse. At seven different points in that report, Herrera said that the facts surrounding Ruby Rippey-Tourk’s paid leave raises “policy questions” that the City should look into, but Newsom never proposed “clarifying” amendments. |