12:00 am - Redding Record-Searchlight
The revelation that former state Assemblyman Doug LaMalfa's chief of staff David Reade's one-man consulting firm pulled in nearly $500,000 on the side during LaMalfa's term hasn't raised a peep at the office that enforces California's election laws.

Uh-Huh... The money quotes from the story follow:

The FPPC and the Assembly Rules Committee require only that legislative staff members fill out a pair of forms that require scant information about how much they make on the side.

Reade's forms say that his side income was between $10,000 and $100,000 a year.

I guess any hopes of finding out about Conaway Ranch and Measure F in Glenn County are out the window - so much for tansparency in government.

Oh - and when Maurice Johanessen lowers the boom on someone over ethics, it is just not good at all...

Reade has said his net income was significantly less than the nearly $100,000 his firm appeared to pull in each year, and he maintains that "a bright line" kept the work he did on the side from happening on the taxpayers' dime.

But former Republican state Sen. Maurice Johannessen doubts Reade's claims.

"I will never believe that someone who is a total insider can have a consultant business that doesn't affect his work with the Legislature," Johannessen said Thursday by phone from his Redding home. "I don't believe that."

Look - Mojo is right on this issue, my business is sometimes DEEPLY affected by my political work. There is a huge difference - the taxpayers don't pay me to sell insurance. If my clients receive lousy service because I am not in the office - I lose the client. If David Reade gives the taxpayers lousy service, he still gets paid. That's wrong.