{"id":28601,"date":"2017-02-01T17:13:50","date_gmt":"2017-02-02T01:13:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/letter-dont-let-devos-pay-to-play-in-federal-politics\/"},"modified":"2017-02-01T17:13:50","modified_gmt":"2017-02-02T01:13:50","slug":"letter-dont-let-devos-pay-to-play-in-federal-politics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/opinion\/letter-dont-let-devos-pay-to-play-in-federal-politics\/","title":{"rendered":"Letter: Don\u2019t let DeVos pay-to-play in federal politics"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>After hearing news stories that Sen. Lisa Murkowski received campaign contributions from Betsy DeVos, I decided to head down to one of her Alaska offices to ask about this in person. Since I am in Anchorage this week for a conference, I visited her offices on L Street (6<sup>th<\/sup> floor for anyone interested).<\/p>\n<p>My question to her staff: \u201cWhat is Senator Murkowski\u2019s official response to the frustration that the public has about her receiving campaign contributions from Betsy Devos?\u201d Staffer\u2019s response: \u201cThat has absolutely nothing to do Senator Murkowski\u2019s decisions. It would be unethical if it did. Senator Murkowski wasn\u2019t aware that Betsy Devos donated to her campaign until a reporter told her. Senator Murkowski doesn\u2019t keep track of who donated or anything like that. So it\u2019s absolutely, it\u2019s a mute point. She may have donated but Senator Murkowski is not going to take that into consideration whatsoever.\u201d Me: \u201cAnd so she\u2019s not concerned that that\u2019s going to influence anything, one way or the other?\u201d Staffer: \u201cShe is not concerned, because she trusts herself ethically.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Providing financial contribution to Senator Murkowski\u2019s campaign shows a lack of ethical consideration on the part of Devos. Betsy Devos thinks she can pay-to-play in our federal politics. But the futures of our country\u2019s children are at stake. Senator Murkowski, please vote NO on the Devos confirmation.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Elizabeth C. Figus<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Juneau<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After hearing <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/\">news<\/a> stories that Sen. Lisa Murkowski received campaign contributions from Betsy DeVos, I decided to head down to one of her Alaska offices to ask about this in person. Since I am in Anchorage this week for a conference, I visited her offices on L Street (6th floor for anyone interested). My question [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":8,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-28601","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28601","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28601"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28601\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28601"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=28601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}