Editorial: Convenient timing

Friday, July 30, 2004 | 8:46 a.m.

On Wednesday John Hawk resigned as a member of the State Board of Education. This was no ordinary resignation, however. Hawk has come under the scrutiny of the state Ethics Commission, which last month launched an investigation into whether he had broken any conflict of interest laws. Hawk, you see, was serving on the same state board that had jurisdiction over a proposed charter high school that he co-founded with his wife. Hawk resigned on Wednesday, all right, but not until after the State Board of Education approved the charter school he helped start.

That Hawk was still on the board as recently as Wednesday is mind-boggling. Way back in November the Ethics Commission issued an opinion that said Hawk should resign from the State Board of Education if it was going to act on the Hawks' charter school application. But the Ethics Commission's warning didn't faze Hawk. Hawk continued to sponsor the proposed charter school and stay on the State Board of Education even though it was an obvious conflict of interest, a conflict that couldn't be mitigated by Hawk's abstaining on votes involving his application. Hawk even filed for re-election in May. And, since no one else filed against him, he automatically would have been elected in November.

Hawk's resignation doesn't mean that this should all blow over now. The Ethics Commission's executive director, Stacy Jennings, said the case would go forward. An elected official, Jennings notes, can't escape the Ethics Commission's jurisdiction just because he resigns. What Hawk did clearly was wrong and the Ethics Commission shouldn't back off. If the Ethics Commission were to drop the case, it would send a terrible signal, suggesting that there is nothing wrong with government officials taking advantage of their office for personal and financial gain -- as long as they resign after they got what they wanted.