The man who speaks for our district in the United States House of Representatives, David Schweikert, surfaced briefly in last week’s Times to announce that he had signed on to an effort to root out fraudulent unemployment claims. Good for him and for us. That’s certainly an appropriate pursuit for an elected official. Clearly, he lives by the principle that a bad actor that games the system for personal, selfish benefit deserves to be exposed and face every consequence.

When Dave last surfaced, he was signing on to confront a different fraud by voting “no” to certifying the Pennsylvania electoral college presidential results. But curiously, with election conspiracies aplenty to chase right here at home, Dave chose to vote “yes” to accept Arizona’s electoral college vote. Huh?

Would he be so calculating that he would, on the same basic question, simultaneously employ two incongruent political stances – spreading fertilizer on Pennsylvania wingnuts while not (at least publicly) cultivating the homegrown assortment? His actions suggest that his political compass is more acute than his moral one.

Lest we forget, in July, following a longstanding investigation by the bipartisan U.S. House Ethics Committee, congressman Schweikert accepted a reprimand, paid a $50,000 fine and admitted to 11 ethics violations during a time period stretching over nine years from 2010 through 2018. The conclusions of the committee were unanimous and the facts are easy to research. Eleven ethics violations with a lot more context. Dave has not surfaced on this one. Or, if you prefer, it’s all fake news.