Greg's Corner

When it comes to Backpage money AZ pols focus on wrong issue

Back in April, we posted about how Backpage donated money to several Arizona politicians in seemingly underhanded ways. According to reports, donations were made not by Backpage as a corporate entity, but by individual employees of Backpage and their spouses. When it was discovered the money had come from Backpage many of the politicians who received the donations denounced the donations and in turn gave the money to charity.

More recently, U.S. Representative Ann Kirkpatrick came under fire for not getting rid of Backpage money she received until now. As is usually the norm in politics, the opposing party took this as an opportunity to admonish Kirkpatrick for taking the money and waiting so long to donate it. That’s putting it mildly by the way, the opposition basically accused her of willingly taking money from a company tied to a child sex trafficking scandal. Kirkpatrick has said she is donating the money to the Arizona Coalition to End Sexual and Domestic Violence.

Unfortunately, the political climate in our country has devolved into little more than personal attacks, name calling and assigning blame. This didn’t just happen recently, as it’s been getting worse for years if not decades. Instead of worrying about where the money is going, Congress should be taking a serious look how it got there in the first place. Backpage allegedly took steps to obfuscate that the money was coming from them in order to try to buy political influence. Considering Backpage has been under intense Congressional scrutiny for the past year or so, that should not come as a coincidence. While Rep. Kirkpatrick may have dragged her heels on donating the money, it’s still going to a worthy cause that helps fight the sex trafficking blight that Backpage has unleashed on this country. I see no better justice than taking the money that Backpage gave to politicians and donating it to worthwhile causes that oppose Backpage’s objectives.