When Sarah was Mayor of Wasillia she fired a woman, that woman vowed to get even. Sarah beat an Anchorage politician named Richard Halcro for the governorship. Sarah had already had problems with Halcro during the time she was on the energy commitee. For the woman from Wasillia it was simply revenge, for Halcro it was a case of sour grapes.
Both of these two started watching everything Sarah did, and turning in ethics complaints. As soon as they turned in a complaint they then notified the liberal news media that was more than glad to make a big deal out of it. These people were turning in two or three ethics complaints a week. Our new ethics law was being used as a weapon in a manner no one ever thought of. All these ethics complaints had to be addressed by a private attourney hired by Sarah, paid for by Sarah, out of her pocket. It got to the point that Sarah was spending so much time on answering ethics complaints that it was interfeering with her daily routine, and her ability to do her job as governor. Also the lawyer fees were growing at a rapid rate. When the Attourney fees passed $500,000.00 Todd and Sarah decided it was going too far, she needed to stop the complaints. The only way to stop them was to resign as governor. This was something Sarah and the Palin family tormented over for weeks, before making the final decission. Track was totally against it. But they could see no other way out. By this time our Democratic controled legislature refused to help by placing some restraints on the ethics law. They were mad that she had accepted the nomination from McCain. As soon as she resigned the complaints stopped, two people had successfully used the ethics program as a weapon, and won. As soon as Sarah was out of office the legislator made changes to the Ethics Law. All but one of the ethics complaints was found to be frivilous and dropped, but each and every one had to be processed and investigated costing the state, and the Palin family, time and money. The one involving her Ex-brother-in-law was the only one found to have merit. Later it was determined he and the second person named in the complaint had committed purgery during the investigation. Charges against Sarah was dropped.
One of the cases was so stupid it was rediculious, but it still had to be investigated. Even the news people thought this one was rediculious. Todd Palin is a racer, and races Arctic Cat snow machines in the Iron Dog 2,000 mile race. They start in Anchorage, run to Nome along the Idatarod Trail. Then from Nome, up the Yukon River to Tanana, then up the Tanana River to the Chena River, and finish on the Chena in Fairbanks. Sarah was present at an interview between Bristol and Greta Van Sestrin. Everyone had thrown their parkas and coats on the sofa when they came in. Someone yelled "Racers coming up the river". People started grabbing coats and running to the river, someone mistakenly grabbed Sarah's coat. Sarah thinking it might be Todd wanted to be out there so she grabbed one of the kids coats and ran to the river. The coat Sarah grabbed had the Arctic Cat logo on the back. No one noticed, or thought anything of it, except the woman from Wasillia. An ethics complaint was turned in that day to the Fairbanks Governor's office. It charged Sarah with "Using her office as Governor to promote Artic Cat Corporation". Simply because she picked up the wrong coat in all the excitement. I was there on the river bank when she came running down. I did not notice she was wearing an Artic Cat Jacket, it's not the kind of thing people pay any attention to up here. Everyone has a jacket that says Arctic Cat, Ski Doo, or Yamaha, on it. Mine says Ski Doo.
