Driving Drunk and Using State Cars

Given the Peg Lautenschalger drunken driving matter, this news from J.B. Van Hollen's administration is a bit awkward.

MADISON -- Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen's administration persuaded state officials last year to let an agent continue driving a state car despite a drunken driving conviction, records show.

The state Department of Administration forbids state employees arrested for drunken driving from operating state vehicles. But that agency gave the agent a conditional exemption at Deputy Attorney General Ray Taffora's request. Taffora argued the agent needed his car to do his job.

The DOA has revoked state driving privileges for 353 state workers for a variety of violations since November 2004, when the agency revised its fleet policies after then-Attorney General Peg Lautenschlager was arrested for driving drunk in a state car. The agent's exemption is the only one DOA has granted since then.

...Van Hollen himself didn't make Lautenschlager's drunken driving an issue during the campaign but pledged to restore "integrity" to the Justice Department.

Jay Heck, executive director of the government watchdog group Common Cause in Wisconsin, said the exemption sends a bad signal from Van Hollen's administration. The agent could have been reassigned to desk duty, he said.

"Everyone should be treated the same way," Heck said.

Agency spokesman Kevin St. John said the exemption was "an application of DOA's rules which permit them."

"Exemptions are not 'favors,'" St. John said in a written statement.

I agree. An exemption isn't a favor.

The question: Should an exemption have been made in this case?

The agent was arrested while off-duty in December 2006, days before Van Hollen took office, according to discipline records The Associated Press obtained through an open records request. Justice Department officials blacked out the agent's name and headquarters.

The agent pleaded no contest to first-offense drunken driving in March 2007, lost his driver's license for six months and received a written reprimand from his division administrator, Jim Warren.

He got an occupational license, which allows a person to drive only to the places listed on the license, such as work or church.

Taffora wrote a letter to DOA's state risk management bureau at DOA two days after a judge signed the agent's conviction. That division handles risk management for state agencies that don't have their own risk bureaus, such as the Justice Department.

Taffora asked that the agent be allowed to continue driving a state car, saying the agent had an otherwise clean driving record, needed a specially equipped law enforcement vehicle to carry out field assignments and his driving would be closely supervised.

"Driving a state vehicle is essential to the performance of (blacked out) assigned duties as a special agent," Taffora wrote. "(Blacked out) regrets deeply the embarrassment that his actions have caused both the Department of Justice and the State of Wisconsin. It is behavior that will not be repeated by (blacked out) nor tolerated by the Department of Justice."

Rollie Boeding, director of the risk management bureau, wrote back about 10 days later granting the agent the exemption as long as he drove only under the terms of his occupational license. Boeding threatened to erase the exemption if the agent received any more violations or was involved in any at-fault accidents.

I think the conditions of the exemption are reasonable, but I wonder why he couldn't be reassigned to a desk job.

Can't someone else take over the duties of Agent (redacted)?

What's disturbing about this is the poor judgment exercised by this government employee.

This special agent drives "a specially equipped law enforcement vehicle to carry out field assignments." His occupation requires driving, yet he put his career at risk by choosing to drive drunk.

He also put other motorists at risk when he was drunk and behind the wheel.

Bottom line: This guy should not have been driving drunk. He must have known the potential consequences to his career. That didn't stop him. It's his first offense, but it's unlikely that this is the first time he's committed the offense.

I think this exemption does send the wrong message.

It's always troubling to me when I learn that a law enforcement agent broke the law.