Recently, authorities arrested
Brown on a complaint of striking a woman, apparently after a sustained
period of partying. Turns out he has carried on an affair with the alleged
victim for a decade, according to her. Meanwhile, he appears to spend
more of his time at an address outside of the district at the residence
where his wife registered to vote, and gave that address to arresting
authorities. He also gets his mail there and more often than not in filling out
disclosure forms uses that address.
None of this automatically should compel
his resignation. A court has yet to find him guilty of any charge, much less a
felony that would force him out of the Legislature as dictated by the
Constitution. And while someone has filed
suit trying to remove him from office for failure to reside in the district
he represents, the procedure
by law to do this remains not yet invoked.
Legal and constitutional matters
aside, neither does there exist a moral case for him to go voluntarily. Even if
charged with a crime, no court has found him guilty of it. His reputed actions,
whether violent to a person or a marriage, have not seemed to have affected his
job performance. Nor has he made any commitment to constituents that he appears
to have broken.
Contrast this with Republican former
Rep. Vance McAllister, caught on record engaging in sexual activity with a
married woman not his wife. Starting out in similar circumstances with Brown
that also did not make for a moral case for his resignation, their paths
diverged when he said he would resign, then did not. That breach
of trust with constituents led them correctly to decide not to reelect him.
In the case of Republican Sen. David Vitter, he confessed
several years after the fact that he had committed a “serious sin” believed to
relate to prostitution services. With actions heavily scrutinized during his
run for governor earlier this fall, years after the admission, no evidence ever
surfaced that his alleged activities ever interfered with his job performance
nor that he had engaged after his revelation in such activities, and he never
got charged with any crime related to the matter.
Yet Democrats (and some
Republicans), who declared Vitter unfit for office, including eventual race
winner Democrat state Rep. John Bel Edwards,
have said nothing about Brown resigning, even though by objective measures –
not facing a criminal charge – Vitter did less to deserve opprobrium. This
again signals how Democrats and other opponents of Vitter became conveniently and
selectively outraged simply because they did not like Vitter and/or as a
political and partisan tool to prevent his election, if not secure the office
for their party. If they weren’t hypocrites, on the same basis that they said
voters should deny Vitter the governorship, they would clamor for Brown voluntarily
to vacate his office.
In the case of senators of this ilk,
they should do more if serious. The Constitution permits
expulsion of a member of a chamber by a two-thirds voted of its seated
membership, for any reason. Any senator who said Vitter’s character meant he
could not serve as governor displays hypocrisy by failing to initiate and/or
support a move for Brown’s expulsion. After all, what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.
Regardless of the absence at this
time of an ethical case to remove Brown, don’t hold your breath that Democrats
will want to remove one of their own. Despite their insisting that the court of
public opinion should judge Vitter, they seem entirely unwilling to apply that
same, if inappropriate, standard to Brown. Most sanctimoniously Edwards, who made
claims of piety during the campaign, stays silent about this incident,
confirming his innate dishonesty that conditions his adherence to his alma
mater’s Honor Code on the basis of whether it politically profits him or his
party.
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