Ohio Governor Bob Taft charged with ethics violations News
Ohio Governor Bob Taft charged with ethics violations

[JURIST] Ohio Governor Bob Taft [official website] was charged Wednesday with criminal misdemeanors for failing to acknowledge nearly 70 golf outings and other favors. The charges stem from a two-month investigation by a task force of Ohio authorities and come three months after Taft stressed at a conference the importance of ethical behavior for public employees. Taft released records earlier this month showing he had accepted invitations to 21 golf events since 1999. They included a 2001 outing with Taft associate and struggling coin dealer Tom Noe [AP report], whose $50 million investment of state money in rare coins began the scandal that led to Taft's disclosure. Earlier this year former Connecticut Governor John G. Rowland [archived official website] began a year-long sentence [JURIST report] for corruption of office after accepting gifts. Franklin County Prosecutor Ron O’Brien said Taft will probably have to appear in court Thursday. The Columbus Dispatch has more.

THIS DAY @ LAW

Bank of England granted political independence

On May 6, 1997, British Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown announced that the Bank of England would be granted political independence for the first time in the three-hundred year history of the Bank. This policy was statutized in the subsequent Bank of England Act of 1998 gave the Bank independent control of British monetary policy effective June 1, 1998. Read the Bank of England Act of 1998.

Chinese Exclusion Act barred Chinese laborers from US

On May 6, 1882, President Chester A. Arthur signed the Chinese Exclusion Act, barring Chinese laborers from entering the United States and prohibiting courts from bestowing US citizenship on Chinese. Connecticut Senator Joseph Hawley spoke out against the Act in these words: Let the proposed statue be read 100 years hence, dug out of the dust of ages and forgotten as it will be except for a line of sneer by some historian, and ask the young man not well read in the history of this country what was the reason for excluding these men and he would not be able to find it in the law. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and its successors were abolished in 1943 at the insistence of President Franklin Roosevelt.