Posted on: Friday, August 20, 2004

EDITORIAL
Tamayo should drop candidacy for now

There seems to be considerable legal confusion surrounding the case of state Rep. Tulsi Tamayo, who wishes to be a candidate for re-election while she is serving on active National Guard duty in Iraq.

But while the legal questions deserve to be sorted out, the political scenario seems clear: Tamayo should withdraw as an active candidate since she will be on active military duty for 18 months, including a year in Iraq.

The representative deserves full credit for her willingness to serve, both as an elected public servant at home, and as a uniformed member of the armed services overseas.

But those two duties, each honorable, are incompatible.

Tamayo has said she needs to sort out the complexities of all this before making a final decision. But she has also said she believes she can serve the needs of her district and her legislative duties long distance from the Middle East.

That's a push. Any legislator will tell you the work is a grinding full-time job while the Legislature is in session. And service in a war zone requires 24-hour concentration.

The legal complication is that state law does not appear to specifically say that a legislative vacancy can be triggered due to active military service. So that's a gray area.

But Defense Department policy clearly states that active-duty service men and women "cannot be a candidate for, hold, or exercise the functions of civil office."

The only loophole in that, Tamayo suggested, was that she is ordinarily not a full-time soldier.

That's all technical.The reality is that Tamayo should do the right thing, declare herself an inactive candidate, do her service and then come back and run again with this added credential under her belt.