I have two serious concerns regarding Seth Benham, who is running for House Representative in District 3 to unseat Rep Dwayne Yunker. To me, these are vital issues regarding integrity, transparency and ethics that every voter should consider.
1. Conflicts of Interest The first issue involves concerns already raised by others within various Facebook groups. It has been pointed out that Mr. Benham has faced questions regarding potential conflicts of interest and proper recusals. This is a significant matter that speaks to the transparency and ethics we should expect from our representatives.
2. Misleading Representation of Funding Success The second issue is the most troubling to me. When Representative Yunker secured project funding, Mr. Benham issued a press release in his own name before the official announcement could even be made. The messaging implied that he was responsible for securing those funds.
In my view, this was highly misleading. While Mr. Benham did submit testimony (as any citizen in our county could have done) it was Representative Yunker who initiated the project, worked to secure the funding, and saw it through to completion. To take credit for the work of a sitting representative is opportunism at its worst. It reflects on Mr Benham’s ethics, integrity and transparency and how he will conduct himself if elected.
Conclusion To this day, Mr. Benham has seemingly refused to give Representative Yunker credit for his work on this project. It is a simple fact that state funding requires the leadership of a representative to be successful.
In my opinion, these actions demonstrate a lack of professional ethics. Voters deserve to know the full context of a candidate’s claims before casting their ballots. It is essential that we support candidates who lead with honesty and give credit where it is due.
Below is the Press Release sent out by Mr Benham on March 2nd. Nowhere will you find any acknowledgement to our Rep Dwayne Yunker. This shows the opportunist unethical side of Mr. Benham:
