June 2, 2005

State Senate Would Be Better Without Wilder

Knoxville's MetroPulse has the must-read editorial of the day regarding Operation Tennessee Waltz, corruption in the state legislature, and why Lt. Gov. Wilder was wrong to defend the indicted against the FBI.

What was Lt. Gov. John Wilder, the Tennessee Senate speaker, thinking when he called the ruse that caught three fellow state senators, a former senator and a state representative taking bribes to affect legislation "wrong"?

Wilder's response from the Senate well to the FBI sting that snared the lawmakers, plus two others described as "bagmen," was a prayer in which he proffered that money was "offered as bait to get someone in jail. It's wrong...."

It's true that the General Assembly, and particularly the Senate side, has a clubby atmosphere, and Wilder has held his chair for the Democrats for 34 years in part by playing the non-partisan card and befriending lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. But to defend them as wronged when they defiled their offices and violated the public trust by taking tens of thousands of dollars is to besmirch his own office and leave the Legislature on even shakier moral ground than the successful sting suggests.

As I said yesterday, the fish rots from the head down. Wilder has lead the state Senate for 34 years. In his own famous phrase, he is fond of letting "the Senate be the Senate." Including, apparently, if that means letting the state Senate be a haven for legislators who are willing to take cash bribes to support a piece of legislation.

The state senate would be a better place without Wilder in it.