According to the article, the options were issued to Allen just 18 days before he was elected to the senate and would be forced to resign as a member of the board.
As I understand it, the (legitimate) purpose of a stock option is to give the employee or Board member an incentive to work for the long term growth of the company. In this case, it "appears" to have been an incentive for the soon-to-be Senator to work for same objective.
If nothing else, this at least warrants a little more investigation.