Here’s what Huckabee won’t need for Christmas
Posted on Tuesday, December 25, 2007
WASHINGTON - If friends or admirers are considering a Christmas gift for the suddenly surging presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, here are few things he might not need: Custom-made cowboy boots, a canoe, fishing rods and tackle, a gun for him ($ 800 ), a gun for his wife, Janet ($ 450 ), his-and-her watches ($ 595 each ), and an all-expensespaid trip to Las Vegas to see a prize fight.
Those items - and hundreds more adding up to tens of thousands of dollars - have already been lavished on Huckabee and his family during his decade in relative obscurity as governor of Arkansas.
Now the inventory of gifts is filling in details as well as raising questions about the Republican, who has sprinted from the back of the pack just weeks before the first primary balloting.
"Most governors in this day and age become much more circumspect in what they accept if only to avoid the appearance of impropriety," said Kirk Jowers, who specializes in political law at the Washington, D. C., firm of Caplin & Drysdale.
"That concern didn't seem to bother Governor Huckabee," said Jowers, adding that his disclosure "seemed like a bigger list than you would typically see."
In an interview, Huckabee's family lawyer, Kevin Crass, said," Despite 300-plus gifts and years of attacks against him by the commission, not one gift was deemed to have been received improperly"and added that at most "there were a couple of instances where there was an inadvertent omission"in the reporting.
Crass said that he once donated a modest amount of his annual legal fees to Huckabee.
Huckabee, the second most famous politician to come out of tiny Hope, Ark., birthplace of former President Bill Clinton, vigorously defends the gifts, which are catalogued in reports to the Arkansas Ethics Commission. "I was never, ever found having received an illegal gift," Huckabee said on CNN's "Larry King Live."
Huckabee, who faced 20 complaints in the Arkansas Ethics Commission on various gift and campaign funding issues, said the cases were brought "by editors of papers who were writing stories, or activists within the Democrat Party or my political opponents. "The complaints resulted in modest fines or reprimands in five cases.
Huckabee fought back against the complaints and frequently won ethics battles, as when he was accused of taking an illegal gratuity by accepting a $ 500 canoe from a local Coca-Cola bottling company and also of failing to report the gift of a $ 200 stadium blanket in 2001.
He appealed an adverse ruling by the ethics commission and won a court ruling declaring the canoe, which had the words "Coke, Arkansas and You," was not an illegal gift.
At the same time, the court upheld a reprimand for the failure to report the gifted blanket on time. Huckabee said the flap was "a foolish thing"based on a misunderstanding over whether the handmade gift's value was enough to require disclosure.
Huckabee's gift disclosures (which can be seen at the Internet site www. sos. arkansas. gov / elections / ce / index. php # ) draw a portrait of an avid outdoorsman who received not only fishing and hunting gear but the use of private lodges and cabins as well as free use of motor boat with free supplies and fuel.
Known for playing in a rock band, he also received the occasional guitar.
In addition to a gun she received, his wife got fishing lessons and a parasailing adventure.
Both Huckabees were given airfare by charities. Several churches and religious groups paid to have Huckabee, an ordained Baptist minister, attend and speak at conferences. The Christian Coalition in 1997 footed the bill to bring him to Atlanta for a conference.
Georgia-based Habitat for Humanity, which builds homes for low-income families worldwide, flew Mrs. Huckabee, as a member of the group's board of directors, to Maine for a gathering.
Other gifts-provided by local department stores, businessmen and professionals-financed the basics, particularly clothing, for the Huckabees.
In 1999, Mrs. Huckabee received $ 23, 000 for her inaugural wardrobe from medical lab entrepreneur Jennings Osborne and his family. The colorful Osborne touts his ties with famous friends and politicians on a Web site that boasts that his is "one of the most celebrated families in Arkansas"with two "palatial"houses and 40 luxury cars.
The governor reported gifts of suits and shoes in addition to more than $ 19, 000 for clothes from Osborne in 1999 alone, as well as free eye care and eye wear, free car repairs, free fuel, gift certificates to Wal-Mart, movie passes and 50 percent off any meals at Wendy's.
The list is "really stunning," said Bob Stern, president of the Center for Governmental Studies, which tracks ethics issues in state governments.
"I wouldn't care if he got suits as a minister," Stern said. "But when you're a public official, you don't receive thousands of dollars in gifts from people who potentially have business pending before the government."
In fact, Huckabee significantly reduced the number of gifts he took, as reported in the last few years of his tenure.
However, even as he was leaving office and preparing to move into a new house last year, the Arkansas Democrat Gazette reported bipartisan grumbling when Huckabee and his wife turned up on gift registries at Target and Dillard's department stores amid housewarming parties hosted by their friends.
The episode appeared to follow a pattern set by another Arkansas couple, Bill and Hillary Clinton, when they registered for gifts as they left the White House.
The last official listings for 2006 show that the Huckabees received a $ 300 mixer, a $ 110 juicer, and Lenox Christmas china costing $ 200.
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