How appropriate. Fate chose the week of the Egg Bowl for legislative leaders to have to wipe lots of egg off their faces.
How silly. House Republican leaders passed a rule, with Senate mimicry pending, to deny media access to the Legislature’s contracts, only to find out they were violating their own law.
How embarrassing. The state’s only statewide Democratic elected official, Attorney General Jim Hood, got to slap the hands of Republican legislative leaders.
How heartening. It was then Lt. Gov. Phil Bryant who championed passage of the Mississippi Accountability and Transparency Act in 2008 that the leaders violated. And it was now Gov. Phil Bryant who criticized their attempt at secrecy, “I will say an open government is a better government.”
Thanks Phil for standing tall on the importance of honest, transparent government.
Maybe our legislative leaders learned a lesson from this? Probably not.
Unlike the Governor, but like many good men, they seem to have succumbed to the siren call of power. As we know, power corrupts and breeds rotten fruits like arrogance and secrecy.
Many see evidence of these rotten fruits in our legislative leaders’ behavior since Republicans gained super majorities in the House and Senates.
Take the egg-on-their-faces EdBuild contract. “Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves and House Speaker Philip Gunn said the Senate Rules and House Management Committees on Tuesday hired a private, nonprofit firm called EdBuild to examine how the state spends money on K-12 education,” reported the Associated Press in October. “EdBuild is based in New Jersey, and the firm was selected for the $250,000 contract without a bid process, the legislative leaders said.” Incredibly, the no-bid EdBuild contract followed legislative action to tighten up bid laws and contract transparency after the Epps bribery scandal involving prison contracts.
Now, these are the same two leaders who regularly tout government transparency. “Fiscal responsibility and transparency” has been a Reeves clarion call. In his listening tours Gunn regularly promotes “government transparency.”
What arrogance to tout open and honest government but not apply it to the Legislature!
Both Reeves and Gunn refused to make public the EdBuild contract. The House Management Committee then passed a rule making all legislative contracts secret. A similar move in the Senate was pending when the Attorney General slapped their hands.
Hmmm.
Two of the key indicators of tyranny are secrecy and rules that apply to everyone else, but not to the ones in power.
The EdBuild incident followed legislative leaders’ decision to only use their choice consultant to provide guidance on tax reform, Reeves’ reluctance to appoint members to the investigative PEER committee, Gunn’s moves to undermine members’ constitutional right to have bills read, secret conference committee meetings, arm twisting of party members to vote right or face consequences, and other actions that give rise to concerns about increasing arrogance and autocratic behavior.
It’s not too late for Gunn and Reeves to follow Bryant’s example.
But don’t be too surprised to see a bill adopted next session exempting legislative contracts from the Accountability and Transparency Act.
Crawford is a syndicated columnist from Meridian (crawfolk@gmail.com)
Kingfish note: The contract will cost the legislature $125,000. A non-profit group is paying the other half of the contract amount.
Saturday, December 3, 2016
Bill Crawford: The Arrogance of the Legislature
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17 comments:
A "non profit" firm only means that the principals simply disperse proceeds (presumably to themselves) at year end. The connotation of the words non profit is often assumed that this is a benevolent group that makes little or no money. There is plenty of graft often associated with this term.
Hiring a consultant, which is all this amounts to, means this:
You contract with somebody and you tell them what you want them to come back to you with at the end of a period of time.
Then, quarter-way through, half-way through and at the end of that time, you receive a pro-rata bill and you write checks.
And periodically, you get boiler-plate reports, printouts, charts and illustrations presented to you with some blanks filled in that make you think the report was drafted for your business.
And during this time, you send people to meet planes and buy box lunches and dim the lights for power-point presentations. Or perhaps you have a hired-girl who does these things.
One wonders whethér the non-profit group utilized, legally or therwise, $$ to lobby Reeves and the other primary players to get the no-bid contract pushed through in such a surreptitious manner.
Not really, 11:00. Non-profit, usually meant to refer to an entity that's organized under section 501(c)3 of the IRS code, means that they're not allowed to distribute earnings. The excess of revenue over expense is put back into the entity. A way around this is to put everyone on a nice salary for doing nothing, but the IRS is pretty good at figuring that out.
12:35 Lavish salaries, inflated expense requests, etc. pretty much guarantees no profits. As long as the principals pay their required income taxes, the IRS really doesn't care. They are getting their money through individual rather than corporate sources.
So who is the non-profit paying for half of the contract???
Mississippi Republicans believe that Trump winning the election is proof that voters believe they are doing a good job. Wrong! Trump was chosen, instead of Bush, Rubio, et.al, because Mississippians know that our politicians are not doing a good job.
Hopefully voters will wake up and put a stop to this BS.
If the City of Jackson and State of MS. wants crime stats. reduced, then lock up some of the folks in City Hall and the Legislature. It is time to drain the cesspool in Mississippi Govt...
If our judicial system is based on adversarial conflict (plaintiff vs defendant) to produce judicial balance, why do so many people rejoice when the legislative process becomes dominated by one party? Without the checks and balance of party rivalry and critique, a bunch of politicians whether dems or republican will take advantage and betray the public trust. We should be glad to see a philosophical adversary with some clout constantly watching the party in power as a check on the misuse of power. It cuts both ways...Democrat or Republican. Jackson could use the same.
Don't forget about our power hungry leaders who stripped Rep. Bo Eaton of his house seat after drawing of straws where he picked the long straw. This created the supermajority that we now must deal with.
Why do they need a consultant when they can just go to their ALEC conference and get a bill already ready to go?
I hope more light will be shown on the fact that the House Management Committee (headed by Gunn's lapdog Snowden) will not authorize the PEER Committee to function. This is the only agency that can investigate the TRUTH behind what is going on down there. It is obvious they do not want the public to know what they are up to. And they don't care.
Gee, you mean the people of YOUR party are human and are seduced by money and power? You really thought they wouldn't be?
You really thought that what they said would matter more than what they do?
You never thought competence mattered including the ability to understand why basic structural principles and limiting human temptations are important?
I don't know whether to laugh or cry.
PEER doesn't answer to Gunn or Snowden.
@ 11:21pm
No, they answer to Hamburgler Reeves! 😂😂😂😂😂😂
Actually, if you'll Google PEER, they don't answer to him either.
11:21 PEER can't do its job unless it has a full committee, which is being held up by Gunn's lapdog Snowden. They are powerless at this point.
6:38 PEER is an independent body, but CAN'T do its job because of the lack of members due to intentional non-action by the leadership.
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