October 24, 2005

Today's Reading List

The War: Lance Frizzell links to a story about possible links between the U.N. Procurement Scandal, Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda - and what that says about the judgment and wisdom of a certain Tennessee congressman currently running for the U.S. Senate. ... Jason Coleman looks at the lies in the troops-burning-dead-Taliban story, and the anti-war activist who is telling lies. ... Michael Yon is up with his latest dispatch from the combat zone. ... Michael Totten has a must-read report from Lebanon. ... And, after reading this, I've decided to eat a BLT for lunch today.

Politics: Sunday's Tennessean reported, in another great Trent Siebert story exposing the unethical swamp of state government, that lobbyists have been appointed to more than 50 seats on state boards and commissions in the past three years - about half of them to panels that have sway over the very issues the lobbyists are paid to influence - and that Gov. Phil Bredesen approves, even though sitting on state boards allows lobbyists more access to policy-making and gives them inside-the-game opportunity to affect special-interest legislation on Capitol Hill.

Drew Johnson, president of the nonpartisan Tennessee Center for Policy Research, is quoted: "Any meaningful ethics reform must end the dubious practice of appointing lobbyists to boards and commissions. Allowing lobbyists to serve on boards and commissions that can benefit the interest groups for which they lobby - a clear conflict of interest - must end."

Bob Krumm comments: "Some of those lobbyists sit on Elections Commissions. They sure would hate to have Sen. Jim Bryson's common sense reform outlawing such conflicts of interest to go into effect before the next election." Krumm continues in a separate post...

Now it looks like the Governor will call a "special session" in January immediately preceding the regular legislative session. Here's how ineffective that early session will be: if any substantive legislation comes out of the special session, those rules will not apply when the Legislature regularly meets the very next week. In Tennessee, laws don't have to take effect until January 1st of the year after they are passed. We, therefore, are stuck with our current shady ethics laws through yet another session of the Legislature, and for another election cycle.

[UPDATE: Here's the TCPR press release with a link to that study, titled Influence from the Inside: An Investigation into the Prevalence of Lobbyists on Tennessee's State Boards and Commissions. The study,, co-authored by TCPR President Drew Johnson and research fellow Trapper Michael, finds that in 2004, better than one out of every 12 lobbyists sat on a state board, while only one out of every 2,653 Tennesseans who are not registered as lobbyists served on a board. The 38-page TCPR report - here - is a damning indictment of "business as usual" in our state government of of the insiders, by the insiders, for the insiders.]

On the same topic, here is a PDF of the front page of the Sunday Chattanooga Times Free Press with the first of their three-part series on Tennessee's lobbyists. See the amazing graphic showing just how politically incestuous things are on Capitol Hill. Also, here are links to Sunday's article and Monday's article.

Don't miss Tom Humphrey's column in the Sunday Knoxville News Sentinel explaining why the governor decided not to call a special session to reform legislative/lobbying ethics.

Also, Sunday's Tennessean editorialized in favor of closing the ethics law loophole that lets lawyer-legislators lobby state agencies. Matt White has commentary on the loophole, as does Tim Chavez, who says "character is lacking" in the leadership of state government. And the Jackson Sun wonders how House Majority Leader Kim McMillan - who wrote the law preserving the loophole and then promptly took advantage of it - can possibly be trusted to write new ethics laws.

On Saturday, The Tennessean reported on one of the uses of money in the Black Caucus' PAC-funded, unregulated slush fund - scholarships for Caucus members' relatives. Tom Humphrey of the Knoxville News Sentinel has more on the disclosures showing that the Caucus was serving as a conduit for funneling money from lobbyists and special-interest PACs into the pockets of member lawmakers, outside of normal campaign-finance and lobbyist-gift regulations and laws.

A story in today's Nashville City Paper looks at unkept promises to close the "late bills committee" loophole that lobbyists use to wine and dine lawmakers.

Sharon Cobb is angry.

And, finally, Adam Groves has a post about game theory and the 2006 Senate race in Tennessee.

Sports: Rob Huddleston is bleeding orange, while Blake Wylie is gloating. Me? I'm cheering for the other UT this year. Hook 'em Horns.

The Media: From Tim Chapman, via Mark Tapscott, comes a link-filled report on bloggers invading Congress. ... Jeff Jarvis mulls Judy Miller and the New York Times. ... Ben Compaine looks at the downsizing of newspapers. ... and Jeff Jarvis takes on elitist curmudgeons who just don't get it.