The report on Gov. Palin's involvement with the disciplinary action against Mike Wooten is out. You can check it out courtesy of CNN [pdf]. The first finding of the report is that Palin abused her power by violating the Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act. The text of mentioned act is available from the great state of Alaska here [pdf].

There are no criminal penalties for violating this particular law, although in the case of the governor, the ethics board is to direct its findings to the legislature so that they may, at their discretion, pursue impeachment. Of course, this strikes me as something they are not likely to do. Another interesting note in the report is the list of people who failed to appear after being served a subpoena. Included in that list is basically everyone who works for or is connected to the governor's staff.

I'm not terribly surprised, of course. The abuse of power in government seems to be the kind of thing we as citizens don't take very seriously, so why shouldn't it happen? I was going to write that we deserve better from our public servants. On second thought, the fact that the news about Palin is about how she winks a lot, and not how her ethical judgement has been found to be wanting by an ethics board, makes me think maybe we get exactly the kinds of public servants we deserve.