November 17, 2005

Weak Ethics

By Nathan Moore
The Democrats in the Tennessee legislature have done something wonderful - well, at least in their minds. They are actually going to let the people of Tennessee watch in on all of their meetings. The sunshine law, which applies to every governmental body in the state BUT the legislature, is the answer, and the only answer that the Democrats have allowed to go forward. Well, not really

The language, however, is not as tight as open government advocates wished and is somewhat confusing, said Frank Gibson, executive director of the Tennessee Coalition on Open Government. It also will expire at the end of the 2006 legislative session.

Scrapped was a proposal that would have placed many legislators' votes online. A plan to audio-record subcommittees also didn't make the cut, and neither did a bill that would have placed online lawmakers' travel costs.

"Every time we came up with a proposal that dealt with opening up government, showing the people where money came from and where it would go, making access to their government easier by using the Internet, it was defeated, basically, on party lines," said House Minority Leader Bill Dunn, R-Knoxville, who also served on the committee.

And after its sixth round of meetings, several members of the committee were happy they were finally finished in drafting a reform package, a process House Speaker Jimmy Naifeh (D-Covington) called “extremely hard.”

Many have said that the greatest natural pain a human being can face is a woman in labor and child birth. I now question that age old standard. It appears that its many times more painful to actually vote for ethics if you're a Tennessee Democrat.