Ethics panel meets on Hamilton - ODU flap, Hamilton rallies the locals...

According to Adam Rhew over at NBC 29, the House Ethics panel met Tuesday morning in Richmond presumably to dig into the details of Del. Phil Hamilton's relationship with Old Dominion University.

Hamilton said late Tuesday that he didn't even know that the panel was meeting, but that he had "signed something" that allowed the group to look at the documents and emails he traded with Old Dominion officials even as he was pushing for a job at the school.

While it sounds a little odd that Hamilton wouldn't know about the meeting, the information in fact matches up with how the panel pursues ethics investigations. Lawmakers aren't even made aware of the first couple of meetings because that is when the panel is expected to decide whether or not to investigate further.

Apparently there have been some inquiries over the years that legislators didn't even know about because the investigations simply died for lack of evidence. Obviously that's unlikely to be a obstacle for this case where Hamilton acknowledged the appearance of impropriety and resigned the position because he was working to secure funding for the center that eventually hired him to a $40,000-a-year job.  

 And according to Rhew Hamilton was not called to the hearing and it was closed to the public.

We're kind of in a strange holding pattern surrounding Hamilton and Old Dominion, with an outstanding ethics probe and an investigation from a federal grand jury. Clearly there's plenty of information out there about the links between Hamilton and Old Dominion, and federal investigators have met with Newport News Public School officials and ODU folks as well.

Meanwhile, Hamilton is not simply waiting around opting instead to hit the campaign trail hard. Hamilton had a core group of supporters out in force sporting matching "Hamilton for Delegate" t-shirts and whopping it up when the Newport News Republican was introduced at last night's townhall on mental health.

And you can tell from the comments filtering around on the Internet that Hamilton's team has told the folks who are standing behind the embattled Republican to make sure that they are vocal and high profile.

Even though the forum drew probably about 75 people - many with their partisan allegiances already well on display with stickers and shirt - the candidates still got into a mini sign-war battle outside Dozier Middle School. Hamilton's team posted probably nearly 100 campaign signs along the road to the gym as did his Democratic opponent Robin Abbott. Republican Glenn Oder and his Democratic challenger Gary West both had heaps of signs outside and Poquoson Mayor Gordon Helsel was also well represented. 

The sign wars were so over the top that Del. William Barlow, D-Isle of Wight, kicked off the forum noting that he was relieved not to see his opponents mounting mini-billboards.

"None of my signs are here," said Barlow, before noting that his two opponents didn't show up for the forum. "Neither are any of my opponents signs."  

Comments

[Matt Archer]

Neil your right there is no "evidence" that Consumer Litigation Associates was involved in briber of the Delegate in regard to HB 1687, and not all law suites are baseless.
Neil you seem to be extremely knowledgeable about the enter working and ideologies of Consumer Litigation Associates or CLA as you like to call it.
HB 1687 actually gives dealership more rights when the costumer doesn't make on their payments on time.
A side effect of this laws is that if the consumer is not happy with their purchase for whatever reason(including fraud) and they stop making payments or even get behind on payments then dealership owns the car again and the consumer doesn't have access to the vehicle to document any problems with the car. Without the documentation Consumer Litigation Associates can't form as solid of a case against the dealership.
I totally understand that Consumer Litigation Associates would want to form this loophole and I agree that it needs to be addressed, but bribing a public official is not the way to handle it. Perhaps becoming the public official is the only way to close the loophole that could cost Consumer Litigation Associates millions.

[Neil B ♪]

"The delegate in question has confirmed ..." - nice, squishy language. Confirmed to who? If it's legal stuff for real, people aren't supposed to drop bombs about it on blogs. It's just you saying stuff on the Internet.

[Annie Mead]

It's not just a rumor Neil. Len Bennett tried to bribe Delegate Cosgrove by offering him a very large "contribution" if he would remove his bill (HB 1687) from consideration. The delegate in question has confirmed this bribe but doesn't want to formally speak out on it because in doing so, he opens himself up to investigations regarding why he did not report the bribe in the first place (which he is legally required to do so.)

[Neil B ♪]

"Not"AnnC[o]ulter and Matt Archer: I don't see any evidence of the bribery etc. you speak or imply. Talking of "word" around Richmond is just sleazy rumor mongering unless there's real evidence. And groups give to various politicians (usually on general terms) all the time, so you can't argue a specific relationship unless you know that politician *wouldn't have vote that way on their own*. Furthermore, Matt, calling suits against dishonest care dealers "baseless" is so utterly phony. I know of a place on Jefferson Ave., where the police appear several times per month because irate customers (who aren't being treated as such) are showing up complaining about hidden flaws and lies concerning the cars they bought there. And BTW, HB 1687 has to do with repo of cars under certain conditions, not fraud about the cars (the latter being the core concern of CLA.)

[Matt Archer]

For those of you that don't know HB 1687 is a bill that "Spells out rights of dealers and buyers when purchases of vehicles are conditional upon financing of the transaction by an independent source." according to the summary given by the Virginia General Assembly's web site.

It would seem that Consumer Litigation Associates (a law firm in which Ms. Abbott is a partner) would have a vested interest in this matter since they have gone after automobile dealers in the past. This bill limits the law firm's ability to in act these baseless law suites.

In my opinion Consumer Litigation Associates is trying to buy votes from our Legislators($419,000 in campaign contributions so far this year) and they are even trying to get a partner in there own law firm in Richmond to further there own greedy agenda.

[NotAnnCulter]

Is the Speaker’s Ethics Commission also investigating the legislator who introduced HB-1687?

The word around Richmond is that an attorney from Consumer Litigation Associates contacted the patron of the bill during the 2009 session and offered him a substantial financial contribution to withdraw the legislation.

Words like “bribe” and “blackmail” have been used to describe the attorney’s conversations with this legislator. It’s interesting that Robin Abbott did not include bribery and blackmail in her ethics reform press release.

I guess she did not want her law firm or any of her partners to get in trouble. Besides this and other media refuse to call a spade a spade.