A matter of ethics

Somehow the word "ethics" and Alabama government have not gone well together in recent years. We have had a number of situations that gave given pause to state and local residents. We've had questions about a county commissioner and a mayor to go before the Ethics Commission. We've had one legislator, a state legislator who was House majority leader, who had contracts with two state community colleges for work that became a spark for statewide debate. That is not to mention all of the other allegations concerning legislators over the past couple of years. We have had governors on both sides of the aisle to be tangled by ethics, losing their jobs in the process.

Some will argue fine points over certain cases, and that's fine. The individual cases are not what I am concerned about. I am concerned about a lingering pattern of problems in a state where the good ol' boy system continues to get the best of us. We know there are problems. How many and how much of it relates to Walker County, well, who knows? The fact is, this is going on statewide at such a clip that it is bound to happen here sooner or latter, if it hasn't already happened, and something has got to be done about it.

Gov. Bob Riley stepped forward this year to make ethics reform a big part of his legislative platform. Elsewhere on his Web site, he mentions that "in Alabama, a lobbyist can spend up to $91,000 per year on a single legislator without being required to report it. That’s $250 a day that special interests are able to spend entertaining officials without the public’s knowledge. Also, under current law, those who lobby the executive branch for state grants or contracts are not required to register with the Ethics Commission."

He mentioned his proposal in his State of the State address:

"It gives citizens a clearer picture of the money being spent to influence public policy and public officials," Riley said. "No longer will there be unlimited wining and dining by the special interests. This reform ends that. And it requires full disclosure of everything spent by lobbyists on elected officials.

"It ensures that all potential conflicts of interests are also fully disclosed. Public officials will have to divulge any ownership they have in, or contracts with, an entity that receives any state funds. It also requires this same level of disclosure for their spouses. The Ethics Commission will – for the first time – have subpoena power to carry out its mission. And an attorney general or district attorney will be given a reasonable amount of time to either prosecute an ethics case or decline it."

According to the Birmingham News, Alabama is the only state with an ethics agency that does not have the power to subpoena.

Of course, this may fall on deaf ears again. Stars may literally have to fall on Alabama before reform can come. The Birmingham News noted in an editorial Sunday that Alabama is one of only six states left in the union that have not passed ethics reform in the past four years. As usual, we are gearing up to be last.

Moreover, legislators did not rush across town to an ethics seminar available to all legislators one day last week in Montgomery. Even though they were in town, the governor had made an issue of state ethics, the two-year college system had its share of state headlines and the event was arranged not to conflict with legislative duties, only one out of five state legislators showed up.

Appropriately, the seminar took place the day that state Rep. Sue Schmitz saw her retrial start on federal fraud charges.

Perhaps I shouldn't be so cynical. There was good news in that a House committee did approve giving the subpoena power, the first time a legislative committee has done that. Perhaps we should have hope, but passing a committee is still small potatoes compared to getting it through the House and the Senate in general.

Citizens should demand action on the bills. They should demand that legislators, many of whom have been dragged through the mud themselves, pass these bills as a means of bringing reform to our state. Legislators should be lining up to bring these types of reform.

I should be hopeful. I am not. Let's all hope I'm proven wrong.