Students Find Palin Contract In Trash: Spurs Investigation In California

[democracy1st]

A document found in the trash at a California state university trash reveals the luxe treatment Sarah Palin will receive when she speaks there this summer -- and has triggered a state investigation into university officials' refusal to disclose details of the contract, the Associated Press reports.

Students at California State University, Stanislaus, uncovered the five-page document after hearing school administrators might be shredding documents related to Palin's June 25 speech to the school's Stanislaus Foundation, the Associated Press reported. According to the contract, audience questions will be pre-screened, Palin's water bottles will have bendable straws and she'll get three rooms at a luxury hotel. The former vice presidential candidate will get first-class plane tickets. If she doesn't fly commercial, "the private aircraft MUST BE a Lear 60 or larger," according to the contract, dated March 16.

For the post-speech Q&A period, Palin requires that "questions are to be collected from the audience in advance, pre-screened and a designated representative . . . shall ask questions directly of the speaker to avoid delay time with a roving microphone in the audience."

The contract doesn't state how much Palin is to be paid. She reportedly gets about $100,000 per speaking engagement.

In announcing the investigation, state Attorney General Jerry Brown said, "This is not about Sarah Palin. The issues are public disclosure and financial accountability in organizations embedded in state-run universities."



Read the full contract here:

http://a.abcnews.go.com/images/Blotter/Palin%20contract2.pdf

http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/04/14/sarah-palins-luxe-speaking-contract-spurs-investigation-in-cali/?icid=main|hp-desktop|dl1|link1|http%3A%2F%2Fwww.politicsdaily.com%2F2010%2F04%2F14%2Fsarah-palins-luxe-speaking-contract-spurs-investigation-in-cali%2F

[gateley]

1. FWIW, they just said on MSNBC that the university said this doesn't exist - not real. nt

[Posteritatis]

2. One hundred thousand dollars? Gah. (nt)

[smoogatz]

3. Just the green M&Ms.

The question is, why would a school from the cash-strapped UC system pay $100k to a speaker who is presumably opposed to the public funding of higher education (it's socialist, after all)? I'm assuming that the money for her talk came from private donors, although CSUS's failure to disclose that information does seem fishy, indeed.