A fine editorial in the Arkansas Leader calls for Lt. Gov. Mark Darr’s impeachment. It’s a road map to everything that was wrong — caution: it’s a long list — with Darr’s effort yesterday to lay blame for his problems on everything and everyone but himself .
It opens:
Here’s some shocking news: Lt. Gov. Mark Darr sends favored reporters a statement saying he will not resign because people who could have told him that he was a serial lawbreaker kept their mouths shut. If someone had simply told him that he couldn’t convert public and campaign funds to personal use he wouldn’t have done it or would have stopped long ago or at least fixed his books so that it would look better.
But the editorial also makes this good point in conclusion:
The lite governor also argued that he was saving the taxpayers money by not resigning because a special election to replace him would cost a million dollars. But not if the governor doesn’t call the unnecessary election. We will elect a lieutenant governor anyway in November and the state meantime has absolutely no use for one.
As we said previously, it is not a fixed judgment that a minor officeholder like Darr must resign for having violated multiple laws until he has been convicted of criminal acts in a court of law. But two Democratic officeholders resigned last year upon the demands of Republican and Democratic officialdom for acts no more serious than Darr’s and they have yet to be convicted of anything. It is just the decent and evenhanded thing to do.