October 5, 2006

Randy Rinks Update

Hardin County's Ted G. Cook continues to hound the Tennessee Registry of Election Finance for failing to do its duty and investigate state Rep. Randy Rinks' suspicious campaign expenditures.

Ted tells me that no paper in Rinks' district has yet covered the story. I'm at a loss to understand why the legislative press corps hasn't jumped all over the story of an incumbent state representative in a tight race spending tens of thousands of campaign dollars to pay his American Express bill, then filing insufficiently specific reports with the Registry, and also using campaign funds to pay his dues at the swank Nashville City Club in apparent violation of state law.

Seems like a no-brainer page-one scandal story to me.

It's even got a second angle - last year Rinks sponsored and passed legislation that stands a good chance of fattening his own wallet. As I reported here last July:

Rinks sponsored and helped draft a bill passed by the General Assembly in 2005 establishing the "Tennessee River Resort District," which authorizes counties such as Hardin, which encompasses Pickwick Lake, to keep much of their state sales-tax revenue for use in developing and promoting tourism. The measure was modeled after legislation used to help develop Gatlinburg and Pidgeon Forge near the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

It may have been a good piece of legislation, but Rinks was the wrong guy to sponsor it. He's a real estate broker. The law was designed to spur high-end development in the Pickwick Lake area. If it works, real estate values will rise. If real estate values rise, so will the real estate commissions Rinks earns on each transaction he brokers.

No, Rinks didn't take cash bribes from a lobbyist in order to vote a certain way on some piece of legislation. What he did was, in some ways, worse - he helped write and pass legislation that will result in fattening his wallet, and he did so without breaking any ethics law or regulation. He abused the position and power entrusted to him by the people of his district.

(And, as the local papers in Rinks' district seem loathe to challenge him, does anyone know what it might cost to run a half-page ad in the local papers down there to inform the voters of the district about Rinks' suspicious campaign expenditures?)

Bonus bit of info from the archives: In 2002, Rinks voted for the income tax.

The good news for the fine people of District 71: In four weeks they can remove Rinks from the legislature and replace him with a fine and decent alternative.