June 28, 2005

Late to the Party

The Tennessean today concludes its three-part series on the culture of corruption at the state legislature. A good round-up, with an interesting paragraph noting that Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen "says he favors more disclosure of what lobbyists do."

Oh, really? Then why, Gov. Bredesen, when legislation was proposed a few months ago to require more such disclosure from lobbysists, where you nowhere to be found in the effort to try to get it passed? Why only now, with the legislature having gone home, are you suddenly interested in the ethics of the lawmakers who make our laws and the lobbyists who try to influence them?

Until the Operation Tennessee Waltz arrests of five sitting and former lawmakers on charges of recieving bribes from lobbyists, Gov. Bredesen, you simply didn't care about the issue of legislative and lobbyist ethics. That's documented fact. Worse, when state Rep. Frank Buck, long a crusader for ethics reform, asked you to provide leadership on legislative ethics reform two years ago, you, Gov. Bredesen, refused to help. And even now that the Waltz scandal has made ethics ripe for you, Gov. Bredesen, to engage in a little political grandstanding, the very first people your administration consulted in beginning to craft proposed ethics reforms for lobbyists and legislators is the lobbyists themselves, the very people who ought to be excluded from the ethics reform debate.

Gov. Bredesen, please read the Tennessean's sidebar today looking at seven sensible ethics reforms covering lobbyists and legislators, and why they haven't already become law in Tennessee like they are in many other states. One reason they aren't already law here is that, for more than two years - until the Waltz scandal made it a politically opportune time for you to suddenly show interest in legislative ethics, you failed to provide Tennessee the kind of leadership it desperately needed.

The corrupt culture of Capitol Hill was there long before Bredesen was elected governor, but he very deliberately did nothing to change it. For that, he ought to apologize to the people of Tennessee.