Rep. Kathy Hawken, a Republican from Fargo, really likes taking time off from her job at the state Legislature.

Last session, in 2013, Hawken went on a Las Vegas vacation while were colleagues were hard at work in Bismarck. What’s ironic is that Hawken, who is championed by the left as a Republican proponent of abortion, was actually out of the state when the House voted on pro-life legislation she was vehemently opposed to.

Now, during the 2015 session, Hawken has taken another vacation. This time to Washington DC to pick up an award from Planned Parenthood Action, the pro-abortion group’s political action committee which is also celebrating the 5th anniversary of Obamacare this week.

Apparently it was a hush-hush deal. I can’t find where Planned Parenthood announced the award anywhere. Not on their national website, nor on the website of the regional chapter of the group.

It’s not just that Rep. Hawken’s positions are objectionable to me as a conservative. It’s that she’s a bad public servant who doesn’t take the job she’s elected to do very seriously.

Some of Hawken’s Republican colleagues in the House tipped me off to the award, the only online evidence of which is a picture of herself with the award she posted on Facebook (see here and below). Hawken posted no caption with the picture, and you can just barely make out that the award is from Planned Parenthood.

Maybe Hawken didn’t want to make a big deal about the award because she took a bunch of time off from the Legislature to get it. According to the daily House journals, Hawken wasn’t in the House chamber for the floor session on the 18th, 19th, and 20th of last week.

Now, many will find Hawken’s actions objectionable because she’s getting an award from Planned Parenthood, a group that is not only radically pro-abortion but also ideologically way to the left of center of North Dakotans generally and Republicans specifically. One needn’t be an ardent pro-life Republican to find it objectionable that an elected Republican leader is getting an award from a group like this.

But more objectionable to me is how lightly Hawken takes her duties in the Legislature. Agree with her views or not, she took a vacation during the session in 2013 missing votes she claimed to care about, and then a part of the 2015 session to go get an award for the position she took on the votes she missed during the 2013 session.

Remember, our state legislature meets for no more than 80 days every second year. Is it too much to ask that our lawmakers not take vacations in the middle of it?

It’s not just that Rep. Hawken’s politics and political allies are objectionable to me as a conservative. It’s that she’s a bad public servant who doesn’t take the job she’s elected to do very seriously.

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