November 6, 2005

Get a Trustworthy Government

From an editorial in today's Tennessean:

State lawmakers who are now getting a look at a draft proposal of an ethics reform package will undoubtedly ask the question: How will this affect me? That's the wrong question. The question should be: Will this proposal help give Tennesseans a government they can trust?

...One proposal that was left out would ban lawmakers from voting on bills that would substantially benefit them, their families or business associates. That proposal prompted complaints from Democrats who hypothesized about how such a ban could affect them personally. And that reaction underlines the problem at the Capitol. Too many lawmakers are for ethics laws only as long as those laws don't impact them.

Some lawmakers claim that strong conflict-of-interest laws would force them to recuse themselves from specific votes. Certainly, in a part-time, citizen legislature, there are going to be times when a lawmaker's profession creates a conflict. But the way to deal with that circumstance isn't to avoid conflict-of-interest laws: It's to enact strong conflict laws so that lawmakers are required to acknowledge the conflict and sit out the vote.

And if the problems are irreconcilable, lawmakers can choose between their careers and their seats in the legislature.

Incumbent legislators don't have a monopoly on intelligence and expertise. There are plenty of citizens in Tennessee capable of being good legislators without constantly running into conflicts of interest. Those who can't abide by ethics rules should leave their seat, and let someone serve who can.

Three years ago, I wrote an op-ed, published in December 2002 in the Memphis Commercial Appeal and in January 2003 in The Tennessean about how the low-trust factor affected the tax reform debate. It's no longer online, but you can read The Tennessean version here PDF file, and the Memphis version here thanks to the miracle of blogging.