Hoffman: More Disclosure, Please

In calling for legislators to disclose conflicts of interest, Wayne Hoffman of the Idaho Freedom Foundation illustrates with a nugget he discovered in a mundane story in Burley’s Weekly News Journal: “The story was written by Lisa Dayley, who worked for me at the (now defunct) South Idaho Press in the 1990s. Dayley wrote that the Minidoka County School District expected a 22 percent increase in the cost of health insurance. That was not the alarming part. What shocked me was this: Dayley wrote, “The school board’s insurance representative, Dean Cameron, plans to look for cheaper rates.” I’ve known Cameron for years. I used to buy insurance from him. Until May, I never knew that Cameron was the school district’s insurance agent.” More here.

Question: Why don’t more elected officials declare conflicts of interests?