Checking In

By "checking in," I refer not to soon-to-be-ex Congressman Anthony Weiner's checking into a rehab facility, but rather, to me just checking in with this brief posting to assure everyone that I am still alive, well and functional. The whole month of June is busy for me this year, what with teaching, law practice, editorial submission deadlines, and lots of personal things. Scheduling was not made any simpler by the Festival of Shavuot, which was last Wednesday and Thursday (though my wife and I did enjoy the holiday immensely). Depending upon how my schedule plays out, there might or might not be further postings of any substance this month.

I really, really, was not intending to post anything on the Weiner story. I don't live in his district, and wouldn't vote for him if I did. His actions speak for themselves, and the less said about him, the better (though the demand by Nancy Pelosi for an ethics investigation provided some much-needed comic relief).

What amazes me is not the media feeding frenzy on him so much as the public obsession with the story. One of our house guests this past Shavuot (known as "He" in past postings) has, to say the least, a fascination with politics. And, having arranged access to the newspapers before the Shavuot holiday, "He" was reading them, and all that "He" could talk about was Weiner, Weiner and more Weiner. Hey, enough already!!

But like the proverbial broken clock, which tells the correct time twice each day, the New York Times got this one right. They buried the story of Weiner's wife's alleged pregnancy somewhere on page 20-something.

Taxing Sleep and Sweat

The Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) has just complained to the Office of Congressional Ethics regarding various Congresscritters who sleep in their offices and use the House Gym to shower. According to CREW, this is a misuse of House resources for personal purposes, and a violation of the tax laws if the value of this perquisite is not reported as personal income.

I truly have mixed feelings about this.

On one hand, CREW's personnel seem to fall largely into the left-of-center ranges of the political spectrum. On the other hand, CREW does not seem to discriminate on the basis of political orientation when it shoots barbs at Congresscritters and others.

On one hand, the various and sundry self-appointed government ethics watchdogs will invariably start barking and blowing whistles whenever a Congresscritter goes on a travel junket or on a vacation to an exotic place. This time, the Congresscritters complained of are in fact spending more time in their offices, which, one would think, would be where they ought to be spending time.

As for using the House Gym to shower, there are plenty who would complain even louder if the Congresscritters didn't shower. Imponderable: Just how intense a workout must the Congresscritters do at the gym in order to legitimately use the showers? Is three drops of sweat enough, or do they have to be totally farshvitzed?

And as for sleeping in their offices: How does sleeping in their offices at night conceptually differ from putting their heads down on their desks for a 5 or 10 minute nap during lunch break? And isn't the public better served if its legislators can get immediately to work without a long, tiring commute? Or, for that matter, a leisurely commute in the back of a taxpayer-financed limousine?


[Disclosure: I took a 1-hour nap in my office today before teaching my classes. I do similarly at least once per month, and sometimes more frequently.].


On one hand, a Congresscritter's control of his or her own office expenditures redounds to the benefit of the public. On the other hand, shouldn't those Congresscritters who want to ramp up the taxes on the more affluent of American society themselves be taxed for the privileges of office they themselves receive?

I'm pleased to no end that there is a group holding Congress's collective feet to the fire in a politically-neutral manner. But this complaint to the OCE, I believe, has more than a few wasteful and nitpicking aspects.

A Matter of Degree

I've got to run and make final preparations for the Festival of Sukkot tonight. My wife has just e-mailed me some more items for the shopping list. We are having guests.

And so, I wish everyone Chag Sameach Sukkot!

But before signing off, I feel inspired to post my thoughts on a recent legal development:

Ayal Rosenthal, a CPA with PriceWaterhouse Coopers (for the uninitiated, PwC is a major accounting firm), copped a guilty plea on some insider trading charges, and got a 60-day sentence. Rosenthal was enrolled in New York University's MBA program at the time, and had even worked there as a Teaching Assistant in a Professional Responsibility course.

NYU decided that Rosenthal was unworthy of an MBA degree, so Rosenthal sued. And Judge Lewis Kaplan, sitting on the bench of the Federal District Court of the Southern District of New York, upheld NYU.

I am no great fan of NYU. They do get quite snotty from time to time (and I have been professionally involved in a case in which questionable ethics on the part of certain key players in the upper reaches of the NYU hierarchy played a role). NYU, then, does not have the firmest standing to deliver the morality lecture.

But Rosenthal is no better than NYU. He, too, has a nefarious arrogance about him, and he needs humility more than he needs an MBA degree.

In my book, Rosenthal and NYU are in pari delicto (Latin for equally at fault). And where parties are in pari delicto, the courts tend to leave the parties as they stand. The pari delicto theory did not play any role in Judge Kaplan's rationale, but the result is the same.

NYU's denial of Rosenthal's MBA has, in a broad sense, ever so slightly prevented my own MBA (not from NYU) from cheapening in value.