All of the excuses of state Senate President Pro Tem Glenn Coffee for not paying his taxes or traffic fines don’t add up. He should resign his post.
This is not an issue about whether his offenses were less serious than other politicians' offenses, but a character issue, and Coffee has come up short.
Recently, The Associated Press reported that last year the IRS filed a tax lien against Coffee totaling $28,822 for federal taxes owed for almost two years.
Coffee revealed that he paid the taxes by taking out a loan, and apologized saying the reason for the failure to pay was “procrastination.”
Coffee and others have said Coffee’s mistake wasn’t as serious as the mistakes of former state House Speaker Lance Cargill, who resigned as speaker after it was discovered he made several late property tax payments and failed to file state personal income tax forms.
Coffee also said he couldn’t remember why he didn’t pay two traffic tickets he received in 2000. The Oklahoma County court clerk said a computer glitch prevented Coffee from receiving a warrant for his arrest for not paying the tickets, but that’s not an excuse for Coffee.
It shouldn’t take a warrant to make someone pay, especially a state government leader and the third in line for the governorship. Coffee had copies of the tickets he was issued. It shouldn’t have taken a reporter from a state paper to discover Coffee had not paid the tickets, and prompt him to pay them.
State law punishes state employees with dismissal if they fail to pay state taxes, a law Coffee backed.
If Coffee can’t keep track of his taxes and tickets, then he shouldn’t be. at the most, the leader in the Senate, and it’s questionable whether he should be a state senator.
This is an issue of character, and Coffee has been found lacking, terribly lacking.
Oklahomans just shouldn’t be able to expect better. They should demand better.
