No Delaware public figure generates more angry letters to the Delaware Liberal tip line more than Insurance Commissioner, Karen Weldin Stewart. We have probably received more than 50 of them about her since she was sworn in a little over a year ago. Most are rants of unsubstantiated rumors and vague assurances that her house of cards are about to come tumbling down. Honestly, we don’t have the resources to follow her around for a day (as we have had suggested to us) or tracking down her CV for lies, exaggerations or distortions.
We also did a series of posts about a questionable RFP and were rebuffed by Elliot Jacobson repeatedly via email and in the comments section of this blog.
However, this morning, the partisan Republican Caesar Rodney Institute published some of the results of their digging. Among their findings:
- Steve Kinion (a KWS fund contributor and fundraiser) has a lucrative contract worth $16,000/month and commutes to his job from Illinois.
- [Editors note: this item has been removed as it was corrected in the original CRI story.]
- One of KWS’s friends, Mary Jo Lopez has been given responsibilities that outstrip her apparent qualifications.
- The Captive Bureau office is more of a front than a working office for Kinion.
- Nancy Willing has been advising KWS and her assistant, Elliot Jacobson.
- CRI won’t use DelawareLiberal’s name, only “a local blog”
- Elliot Jacobson takes the same crappy attitude with CRI as he does with DelawareLiberal.
- KWS uses her state vehicle for personal business often. She tries to minimize the time in the car by speeding, though.
- She also likes to travel on the departments dime (more in 1 year than any previous IC in a 4 year term).
I am still looking at the documents that CRI has made available (car records, emails, etc.) but they appear to be selectively released. What do you think?