Jackson Jambalaya

JJ posted this in May:

"The House Management Committee met on May 11 to discuss a budget shortfall for the next fiscal year (see below for a list of members). House Clerk Don Richardson and a staff employee briefed the committee on the House's budget problems. This correspondent was the only person in attendance who was not a member of the Legislature despite media reports on the meeting.

Mr. Richardson didn't mince any words and took the bull by the horns: The worst-case scenario for the House's operating budget projected a shortfall of $500,000. Unfortunately, the actual shortfall was going to be $700,000 if no action was taken...

He estimated another $200,000 could be saved by a similar ban on all out of state travel expense reimbursements. The cut in staff travel would save $75,000 as well. Representatives Percy Watson and J.P. Compretta both said the House should cut reimbursement for all travel expenses.

However, two members took very strong exceptions to the proposed ban on out of state travel reimbursements. Representatives Willie Perkins and Omaria Scott both heatedly objected to such cuts. Both members were quite animated as they argued as members of national associations, the state should reimburse them for traveling to meetings held by those organizations.

Ms. Scott called it an issue of "fairness" and was quite vigorous in her objections....

Mr. Perkins then said he was "concerned with the suspension of out of state travel" and that he wanted the state to pay for him to travel to national board meetings. He point blank told the committee "if there is an across the board suspension of (reimbursement for) out of state travel, ya losing me." Ms. Scott chimed in and argued again the state should pay for out of state travel to national associations.

Mr. Watson tried to mediate and said the cuts were not permanent but they "needed to get travel in-line to save discretionary days." The Speaker then said he wanted to deal with it now. Mr. Watson followed his lead and moved for a vote on suspending reimbursement for travel expenses for members and employees. Mr. Perkins objected and moved for a separate vote on the banning of reimbursement on out of state travel expenses. He further stated "I want the minutes to show I objected." Only two other members voted with Perkins in his opposition, Scott and Coleman. The motions passed and the committee banned said travel by members and employees."

Since these two legislators were wailing so loudly over losing their taxpayer-paid out of state trips, the natural thing to do was to file a public records request asking for copies of the expenses and receipts submitted by Representatives Perkins, Scott, and Watson the current and last two fiscal years. I included Watson because I thought his expenses would be much lower than those of the other two and wanted to show a contrast within the Black caucus. I personally delivered the request to Mr. Richardson.

In a few days, I received the following response from Mr. Richardson:



The law apparently exempts the House from all public records laws and allows it to make its own policy. Indeed, Mr. Richardson wrote "pursuant to these provisions, the House Management Committee adopted a policy regarding requests for expense records of the Mississippi House of Representatives."

The Kingfish likes to stay abreast of all public records laws and hates wasting the time of hard-working public officials with frivolous requests. Therefore I sent the following email to Mr. Richardson:

from Kingfish
to drichardson@house.ms.gov
date Sun, Jun 27, 2010 at 6:05 PM
subject Response to public records request
mailed-by gmail.com

hide details Jun 27

Mr. Richardson:

Thank you for your kind and prompt response to my public records request. Please proceed with my public records request for the 2009 summary you stated you were authorized to release.

However, I do have one question. Your letter states the House Management Committee "adopted a policy regarding expense requests". I have been unable to find the policy on the legislature's website or anywhere else online. Could you please provide me a citation to the policy or a link to where it is available online. It is my intention to maintain a working knowledge of your public records policy so as not to waste your time. Therefor, any assistance you can provide me on learning what the exact policy is will be greatly appreciated.

Please feel free to call me at xxxxxxx if you wish to discuss this further."

Pretty reasonable request one would think. If you are going to quote a policy, please provide a citation to the policy or a copy of said policy. I even called Mr. Richardson's office several times and left messages. I received the second letter on July 12 (see above Scribd embed.). I did state for him to proceed with my public records request. Mr. Richardson sent me a second letter on July 12. Mr. Richardson sent a non-response. He states the law exempts the legislature from the public records statutes and this time does not even mention a policy.

The House leadership has continued stonewalling since Mr. Richardson sent his letter. I called Speaker Pro-Tem J.P. Compretta's office last week. Messages were left. Calls were not returned. One of Mr. Richardson's employees finally called me last week. I informed her I was calling to find out what policy Mr. Richardson was citing. She promised to relay the message to the clerk. I spoke to Representative Rita Martinson as well. The Lady from Madison County said the committee leadership had not informed the committee about my request and such actions were par for the course. She said she and other members were virtually ignored on the committee and at times informed of committee actions after they took place. Shades of the treatment of Socrates and Leland by the Levee Board. The funny part is the members thought Mrs. Martinson had put me up to appearing at the meeting since she was not present. Funny in that until last week, I had never been in contact with Mrs. Martinson and someone else had tipped me off about the meeting.

The House leadership apparently thinks it is accountable to no one but itself, taxpayers be damned. All the leadership has to do is produce copies of some receipts and expenses submitted by some members who have made it clear they expect the taxpayers to pay for their travel to out of state conventions, meetings, and other "association functions". However, the leadership thinks it is above the law. It doesn't even cite a law or policy backing up its position as "Because we say so" is apparently Billy McCoy's style of leadership. It is debatable as to whether a policy even exists and the leadership is merely making things up as they go along. A former member of the House privy to such things informed me such was probably the case.

Billy McCoy and his leadership can say "screw you" to this blogger and the taxpayers of the state as often as they can. However, I'm going to plugging away at this one because the more he stonewalls, the more its obvious he and his friends have something to hide. Perkins and Scott will probably scream racism but numbers don't lie and neither will those receipts. McCoy, Compretta, Richardson, Scott, and Perkins need to remember they are our servants, not our rulers.