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A good step forward
12-23-2007 - from Huntsville Times, David Prather
Requiring officials, others to show fiscal ties makes sense
Three North Alabama lawmakers will sponsor a bill in the forthcoming session of the Legislature to put the spotlight on potential nepotism in state government. It's a good start, but more is needed.
State Reps. Mike Ball, R-Madison, and Cam Ward, R-Alabaster, and state Sen. Arthur Orr, R-Decatur, want public officials and employees - and their spouses - to disclose publicly if they work for or have contracts with state government.
Jim Sumner, executive director of the Alabama Ethics Commission, has endorsed the bill as another window for government transparency.
It's not a new idea. A similar bill was introduced in this year's session, but it became one of the many casualties of the internecine Senate fighting that kept many good-government proposals from receiving due consideration.
Why does the state need such a law? You need only to look at the friends-and-family escapades in the state's two-year college system to understand that a number of questionable - even criminal - practices might have been thwarted if they hadn't been conveniently hidden behind a cloak of secrecy.
But just getting elected officials and government employees on the record won't solve the problem. More stringent prohibitions are needed, particularly when they concern the families of legislators who, after all, decide how state money is going to be spent.
The Ball-Ward-Orr proposal also should remind voters how far short of full disclosure current laws fall.
In the mid '90s, when the state reformed its ethics laws, it adopted stricter limits on fundraising, required lobbyists to register and severely circumscribed their activities. It also kept retiring officials from immediately jumping into lobbying jobs for companies they formerly regulated.
All of that was to the good, and made for more honest government.
But the new laws also chipped away at valuable rules already in place.
They, for example, no longer required public officials to list occupations of siblings, parents and dependent children. They made it harder to get specifics about what property officials might own. In the broad view, they made it more difficult to determine whether a lawmaker's vote was linked to his or her family's financial interests.
The public officials defended these changes, saying they deserved "privacy" - ignoring the fact that it was public, not private, money that paid their salaries.
And for all the tightening of the screws on lobbyists' behavior, legislators couldn't bring themselves to admit that $249.99 a day in unreported lobbyist schmoozing is too much.
Alabama's ethics laws need a comprehensive look and the commission Sumner heads needs more enforcement power.
Considering the problems in the Senate, that may be unrealistic in the next session, although hope springs eternal.
But if sweeping changes aren't possible, the bill sponsored by the three Republicans is at least a good step forward.
By David Prather, for the editorial board.
E-mail: david.prather@htimes.com
Alabama News