Blog offers look at Ethics Commission appointee

For those who are interested in more information on former Rep. Ken Legan, R-Halfway, who was appointed earlier this week by Governor Matt Blunt to serve on the Missouri Ethics Commission, please check out the latest post on the Arch City Chronicle blog:

For many, if the name Legan rings a bell, it is most likely related to his distaste for investigative journalists and animal rights activists. In 2002 Legan, who is also a cattle farmer, sponsored an amendment making it a crime to photograph of videotape animals in a barn without permission. The amendment failed.

Legan dubbed his amendment an "anti-terrorism" issue. Though he was referring to other language in the amendment criminalizing the release of diseases on farms, the groups seeking to expose the puppy mills that then seemed to dot the countryside took understandable umbrage to the label.

Not all animals, however, are shown quite the same concern. Legal sponsored a bill in 2000 which would hold the state responsible for any rogue-elk damage that may occur if he state proceeded with its plan to release wild elk in the Mark Twain National Forest. Concerns over potential disease put the plan to pasture.

For more information on Legan, check out this post from the June 19 Turner Report and this one from June 18.