Spokane Mayor Recalled After Internet Sex Scandal
JOHN K. WILEY /Associated Press
SPOKANE, Wash. - Mayor James E. West must leave office this month after voters recalled him in a special election sparked by allegations he used a city computer to woo gay men over the Internet.
West, 54, must leave his position when the election results are certified Dec. 16. He has not been charged with a crime, but FBI agents seized computers from his home as part of an investigation.
"I said I'd abide by the will of the voters, obviously, and they've spoken," West told The Associated Press Tuesday. "I'm at peace with their decision and disappointed."
West, a former Boy Scout executive and sheriff's deputy, was elected mayor in 2003 after serving more than two decades as a conservative Republican in the state Legislature, where he voted against gay-friendly bills (emphasis mine).
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Adios, you hypocrite. Enjoy the trash heap of history along with all the other "morally superior" wingnuts.
According to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, the recall effort was launched by Shannon Sullivan, "a single mother with a high-school education and no legal background, [who] shepherded her petitions for a recall vote through superior and state high court challenges brought by the mayor's lawyers."
"It's been a long, hard seven months," she said Tuesday. "Elected officials need to be held to higher standards." Shannon has said she started the campaign after finding herself at a loss to explain newspaper reports of West's behavior to her 9-year-old son.
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I don't kow what Shannon Sullivan's motives were, and personally, I couldn't care less. Whether she's got an overdeveloped sense of irony, civic duty, or just plain doesn't want a gay man in the mayor's office, all I can say is you go, girl!
For even more right-wing hypocrisy about sex and morality, check out the following: