Sestak – Bad idea, even worse outcome

Midterm Elections 2010Congressman Joe Sestak from Pennsylvania just defeated incumbent Arlen Specter in a tough primary. Shortly thereafter, rumors spread about a job offer from the White House.

White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel had an arrangement with former President Bill Clinton, who was supposed to offer Sestak a job in the administration in return for him dropping out of the race and therefore giving Arlen Specter the chance to advance to the general election, unchallenged. Sestek did decline the offer immediately.

According to Sestak, President Obama had serious interest in Specter as the candidate for the general election. But what they have probably missed is that Sestak has much higher chances to win in November, due to the whole anti-incumbent turmoil.
Some might even view this as business as usual in Washington, but it is against the law.

18 U.S.C. § 600 : US Code – Section 600: Promise of employment or other benefit for political activity

Whoever, directly or indirectly, promises any employment,
position, compensation, contract, appointment, or other benefit,
provided for or made possible in whole or in part by any Act of
Congress, or any special consideration in obtaining any such
benefit, to any person as consideration, favor, or reward for any
political activity or for the support of or opposition to any
candidate or any political party in connection with any general or
special election to any political office, or in connection with any
primary election or political convention or caucus held to select
candidates for any political office, shall be fined under this
title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both.

So this is going to be a huge problem for the Obama administration, because the job offer clearly violated this law and therefore an investigation has to be initiated.
But there is none and the media also stopped reporting this scandal right after the incident surfaced.

So it looks like this dirty deed will go away unpunished and the administration will continue to be able to meddle with primary races in the future.