Clearly Sen. Melanie Sojourner’s mind has not been on her “part-time” job representing the people of Southwest Mississippi as their state senator.

Sojourner had a horrible attendance record at the legislative session earlier this year, simply not being present on many days of the session.

When questioned about her absences, Sojourner explained that her role as a state senator was merely a part-time job and that she had other work commitments, chief among them is her role in leading another state senator’s bid for a U.S. Senate seat.

Earlier this week, Sojourner was informed that her state paycheck would be withheld until she filed an annual state-mandated campaign finance report. In addition, she will be fined $500 for failing to file the report.

Sojourner was the only one of the 174 legislators who hadn’t filed the report this week.

The report was due Jan. 31. Sojourner admitted this week that she knew the report needed to be filed and that she was late, but blamed September 2013 tornado damage to her Kingston house as the culprit. The damage caused her to lose the majority of her personal paperwork, she said.

Sojourner’s excuse would have been valid and rock solid, were it not 10 months after the damage to her house.

That seems like plenty of time to obtain duplicates of pertinent paperwork, file a request for a deadline extension or simply fill out the report with what information was available.

To simply ignore the deadline illustrates a disregard for the seriousness of the role in which Sojourner holds for the region’s citizens.

We hope with her campaign manager’s job seemingly ended — her candidate lost in the primary runoff — Sojourner will refocus on fulfilling her obligations for the remainder of her term.