By Editorial Staff, Marion, IN Chronicle-Tribune, June 25, 2007

25 Jun 2007 // More evidence has been released on how the consistent domination of one political party over the other leads to bad government. The issue again involves our own congressman, Dan Burton, a Republican who holds one of the safest of GOP seats in the nation and has for decades.

A watchdog group, CREW - Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington - has put together a report on how senior members of Congress provide for family members by virtue of their office.

Burton, according to CREW, paid his daughter a total of $143,900 in salary for working on his re-election campaigns in each of the last three elections cycles.

Danielle Sarkine made $58,400 for her work on her dad's 2006 campaign and received another $3,233 in reimbursements, all paid from the Burton campaign committee.

Current law prevents the use of campaign money for personal use. Paying children, however, is all right under the law so long as the payment is at fair market value for real service to the campaign.

The Federal Election Commission presumes, according to CREW, that a relative is hired because he or she is qualified and is being paid what another person filling the same job would be paid.

There is conflict of interest, and then there is the appearance of a conflict of interest. Paying your daughter for campaign work on a regular basis in the amounts documented is certainly an apparent conflict of interest and should be avoided.

This is more disturbing coming on the heels of Burton's celebrated trek to Palm Springs, Calif., for a celebrity golf tournament instead of taking care of the people's business in Washington this past January. He missed 27 percent of House roll call votes that month.

This revelation continues to paint a picture of arrogance in office.

If the CREW group has a partisan agenda, it wasn't apparent in this report, which also found that 41 Democrats used their positions to financially benefit family members.

Burton has opposition in the Republican primary in 2008. GOP voters need to study that race seriously and avoid giving Burton a free pass back to the general election for the U.S. House.