McGuiness is not the right choice

Maya Angelou famously said, “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.” Kathy McGuiness has indeed shown us who she is, and based on that, she does not deserve your vote. The voters deserve more than a whitewashed version of what happened when she was state auditor, an elected position from which she resigned in disgrace.  

There is much to unpack here, so bear with me. 

Let’s look at the criminal charges McGuiness faced starting in October 2021. That was when a grand jury indicted her on five criminal charges, including two felonies. The felony indictments had to do with theft and intimidating potential witnesses. The attorney general stated at the time: “The indictment includes a great deal of evidence that the state auditor repeatedly broke the law and systemically abused her power, beginning in her first year in office. Our investigation revealed a long trail of corruption, nepotism, official misconduct, intimidation and fraud that implicated thousands of taxpayer dollars – all from an elected official who is supposed to be a watchdog for exactly this kind of misbehavior.” 

At trial, a jury of her peers, based on the evidence presented, convicted her of three misdemeanors – official misconduct, structuring (having to do with a contracting arrangement) and conflict of interest. McGuiness was the first sitting statewide elected official ever charged or convicted of crimes while in office. Over the course of months of legal machinations, two of the three misdemeanors were overturned. One can’t help but wonder if this was the result of having the means to afford a great lawyer and a getting a friendly judge. At any rate, the remaining charge, conflict of interest, centered on the charge that McGuiness violated the state officials’ code of conduct by hiring her daughter and affording her benefits not available to others, including the ability to work remotely while in college, drive a state vehicle and bank hours then apply them to weeks during which she did little or no work.  

Even in the face of these convictions, McGuiness refused to resign and continued to earn her salary as state auditor. In July 2022, in a 13-7 vote, in a special session, Senate Democrats voted to remove McGuiness from office. But her good friend, Pete Schwartzkopf, speaker of the House at the time, refused to bring the House back into special session to take up the issue, calling it political theater. She finally resigned her office in October 2022 after being sentenced to probation and a fine.  

Now McGuiness has the chutzpah to ask us, the voters of the 14th Representative District, to send her to Dover as our representative. I say no! This seriously flawed individual, who has demonstrated questionable ethics and poor judgement, does not deserve our vote.  She has shown us who she is. Let’s believe her!