Word of a second top-level personnel departure within a week has hit the State Elections Enforcement Commission -- this time in the form of a decision by Beth Rotman, the top-level administrator in charge of the state's system of public financing of campaigns, to leave the agency early next year.
It was less than a week ago that the election agency's director of enforcement, Joan Andrews, was laid off under controversial circumstances -- in what the agency's director, Albert P. Lenge, described as a consolidation move to increase efficiency, but which Andrews said was part of a trend toward softening the agency's approach to enforcement of election laws.
In Rotman's case, there is no controversy. She said it's a matter of her home life: Her partner is taking "an amazing opportunity" to work in Israel, and she is going also.
Wednesday, night, Rotman said she will make sure that the public-financing program is handled properly through the November election and will also plan for the 2012 election and beyond. She said of her work since 2006 on the public-financing program, called the Citizens' Election Program, this way: "I am very proud to have worked with state leaders on key legislative and fiscal changes that enabled the successful operation of the Program for statewide and legislative elections."