If you have any doubt that state government in Alabama is operated for the benefit of the elected and the connected, look no further that the case of Rep. Sue Schmitz.
Schmitz, D-Toney, is accused by the feds of accepting a salary from Central Alabama Community College without doing the work to earn it.
Actually, it’s a second trial for Schmitz. Jurors in her first trial deadlocked. Perhaps they couldn’t decide whether taking a government check without doing much work is really a crime.
They might have reason to wonder. Prosecuting people for that kind of thing doesn’t seem to be at the top of state law enforcement’s priority list. It’s those picky old feds that insist on trying to change the way we do things in Alabama. In the Schmitz case, federal money was paying her salary, she’s charged with four counts of fraud and four counts of mail fraud.
(Students of history might recall that it wasn’t state law enforcement that toppled the corrupt Huey Long machine in Louisiana. It was the feds there, too. And it was mail fraud charges that began unraveling the regime).
Regardless of whether Schmitz actually showed up for work, it is how she got her job that offers an insight into how things work.
Did she send in her resume? Submit to interviews? Take a competitive exam?
Not if you believe the testimony of some people who have incentives to tell the truth; she just had powerful friends.
Consider Seth Hammett’s testimony.
Hammett, who wields considerable influence as House speaker, said Alabama Education Association executive secretary Paul Hubbert, who is generally regarded as the state’s most influential lobbyist, told him that Schmitz would be coming to see him with a request and that he’d take it as a favor if Hammett honored it.
Hammett said that at Schmitz’s request he asked the head of the committee over the education budget to include money for the job for her.
In response to a question from Schmitz’s attorney, Hammett said he had changed his testimony about whether he had asked for money to be added to the budget “upon reflection.” He didn’t say what encouraged that reflection.
Former two-year college system chancellor Roy Johnson, who is helping the feds while awaiting sentencing after pleading guilty to 15 felony counts (cooperating could net him less prison time), testified that both Hubbert and Hammett had asked him to find a job for Schmitz.
Perhaps I’m being cynical, but I wonder whether we would have heard about any of this if the Community Intensive Training for Youth program where Schmitz was employed were not run with federal money.
Although Schmitz doesn’t appear to have been a stickler about the procedures by which she got her job, she seems much more concerned about seeing that the rules on firing employees are followed to the letter. Schmitz, who was fired in October 2007, contested the firing on the grounds that the Fair Dismissal Act had not been followed.
An administrative law judge agreed, ruling that she could not be terminated at will. This week, a Montgomery County circuit judge upheld that ruling and ordered the college to reinstate her with back pay and benefits.
The college and the CITY program are appealing the order to grant Schmitz back pay.
Alabamians pride themselves on their conservatism. They hate paying taxes and are proud of it. Even if the two-year college scandal were the only looting of the public purse, there would be reason to think that too much of the taxpayers’ money goes to waste.
Unfortunately, it’s not the first scandal
It likely won’t be the last, because we Alabamians aren’t really conservatives.
We’re suckers.
Year after year we watch the elected take care of themselves and the connected. And then we elect them again, because they assure us they have “conservative Alabama values.”
Some conservatives. Some values.
Contact the writer at billatthelake@gmail.com
Friday, February 20, 2009
Thursday, January 29, 2009
A Bucket of Warm Spit
The government scandals in Illinois led pundits to draw parallels with the colorful history of political corruption in my home state of Louisiana.
The comparisons are facile, but shallow.
A more striking parallel, which those pundits have failed to draw, is between the Louisiana Legislature in the Huey Long era.
Louisiana had a constitution that like the U.S. Constitution created three branches of government. Huey Long was elected governor under that constitution and proceeded to shred it, establishing what is likely the closest thing we have seen to a dictatorship in America.
He seized control of the legislature. Those who didn’t succumb to persuasion were bullied and blackmailed. One legislator is said to have a waved a copy of the constitution in front of Long only to be met with the response that “I’m the constitution now.”
Soon the courts and the supposedly independent state agencies were under his thumb, too. He even instituted a Bureau of Criminal Identification, a separate organization responsible only to the governor, which could arrest and detain anybody without warrant.
Of course, Adolph Hitler became chancellor of Germany under the Weimar Constitution and then shredded it.
We can look back and shake our heads and wonder why no one was brave enough or principled enough or cared to defend the constitutions.
One day perhaps we will look at our national government and wonder why no one was brave enough or principled enough or cared to defend the Constitution.
Power flows to the executive branch during times of military or financial crisis. People seem to be more willing to accept authoritarian government when they are afraid.
Congress long ago gave up its constitutional authority to declare war. Its authority “to make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces.”
After 9/11, when the Land of the Brave became the Land of the Afraid, instead of providing leadership to defend the constitution, the Congress rolled over to the executive branch. The same people who once called for reading the Constitution literally suddenly found that some of the provisions that spell out the most fundamental rights – the right to a Writ of Habeas Corpus, the prohibition of unreasonable searches and seizures, the right to a speedy trial and to be confronted with witnesses – didn’t mean exactly what the words say. The executive branch could decide what they meant.
The Congress’s most immediate priorities seem to be securing partisan advantage and winning re-election.
The founding fathers weren’t gods, or even demigods, although I think we can make the case that they were visionaries. They had had recent experiences with the abuses of power, and they framed a constitution that was designed to prevent the government they were creating from subjecting its citizens to those same abuses.
They provided a framework, but no written constitution can protect our freedom unless we – and those we elect to lead – believe in it enough to defend it.
John Nance Garner famously said that the vice presidency wasn’t worth a bucket of warm spit.
Which may put it one notch above the Congress.
Contract the writer at billatthelake@gmail.com
The comparisons are facile, but shallow.
A more striking parallel, which those pundits have failed to draw, is between the Louisiana Legislature in the Huey Long era.
Louisiana had a constitution that like the U.S. Constitution created three branches of government. Huey Long was elected governor under that constitution and proceeded to shred it, establishing what is likely the closest thing we have seen to a dictatorship in America.
He seized control of the legislature. Those who didn’t succumb to persuasion were bullied and blackmailed. One legislator is said to have a waved a copy of the constitution in front of Long only to be met with the response that “I’m the constitution now.”
Soon the courts and the supposedly independent state agencies were under his thumb, too. He even instituted a Bureau of Criminal Identification, a separate organization responsible only to the governor, which could arrest and detain anybody without warrant.
Of course, Adolph Hitler became chancellor of Germany under the Weimar Constitution and then shredded it.
We can look back and shake our heads and wonder why no one was brave enough or principled enough or cared to defend the constitutions.
One day perhaps we will look at our national government and wonder why no one was brave enough or principled enough or cared to defend the Constitution.
Power flows to the executive branch during times of military or financial crisis. People seem to be more willing to accept authoritarian government when they are afraid.
Congress long ago gave up its constitutional authority to declare war. Its authority “to make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces.”
After 9/11, when the Land of the Brave became the Land of the Afraid, instead of providing leadership to defend the constitution, the Congress rolled over to the executive branch. The same people who once called for reading the Constitution literally suddenly found that some of the provisions that spell out the most fundamental rights – the right to a Writ of Habeas Corpus, the prohibition of unreasonable searches and seizures, the right to a speedy trial and to be confronted with witnesses – didn’t mean exactly what the words say. The executive branch could decide what they meant.
The Congress’s most immediate priorities seem to be securing partisan advantage and winning re-election.
The founding fathers weren’t gods, or even demigods, although I think we can make the case that they were visionaries. They had had recent experiences with the abuses of power, and they framed a constitution that was designed to prevent the government they were creating from subjecting its citizens to those same abuses.
They provided a framework, but no written constitution can protect our freedom unless we – and those we elect to lead – believe in it enough to defend it.
John Nance Garner famously said that the vice presidency wasn’t worth a bucket of warm spit.
Which may put it one notch above the Congress.
Contract the writer at billatthelake@gmail.com
Monday, January 5, 2009
Do Overs Are For Kids' Games
The slate looks clean, but underneath, the chalk remembers the soul beneath.
We were not sorry to tear the last leaf off the 2008 calendar.
Although there were times of joy and blessing, it is not a year that we expect to recall with nostalgia. What we will recall is Adelaide’s fall down the stairs, resulting in severe injuries, followed by my summer of weaknesses from blood loss after surgery and bypass surgery for three clogged arteries. (And we, along with millions of Americans, saw the value of our life savings erode dramatically.)
So, we are ready to move on.
There are no do overs except in kids’ games. We all know intellectually that our lives don’t have chapters that coincide neatly with the months and volumes that correspond to the year.
We awoke on the morning of Jan. 1 the same people who went to bed on Dec. 31, carried along on the current of everything that has gone before. Adelaide is still recovering the injuries suffered in her fall, and I am still recovering from the bypass surgery. And who knows what the new year will bring.
Let’s face it, though. That brand new calendar inevitably invites us to evaluate where we are and to make new plans.
I learned long ago that New Year’s resolutions tend have a larger element of wish than resolve.
But there is one resolution that I happily will renew: I will try to recognize that each day is a gift to be appreciated and savored.
The writer can be contacted at billatthelake@gmail.com
--Lyric from “Blink of an Eye” by Ann and Roger McNamee
We were not sorry to tear the last leaf off the 2008 calendar.
Although there were times of joy and blessing, it is not a year that we expect to recall with nostalgia. What we will recall is Adelaide’s fall down the stairs, resulting in severe injuries, followed by my summer of weaknesses from blood loss after surgery and bypass surgery for three clogged arteries. (And we, along with millions of Americans, saw the value of our life savings erode dramatically.)
So, we are ready to move on.
There are no do overs except in kids’ games. We all know intellectually that our lives don’t have chapters that coincide neatly with the months and volumes that correspond to the year.
We awoke on the morning of Jan. 1 the same people who went to bed on Dec. 31, carried along on the current of everything that has gone before. Adelaide is still recovering the injuries suffered in her fall, and I am still recovering from the bypass surgery. And who knows what the new year will bring.
Let’s face it, though. That brand new calendar inevitably invites us to evaluate where we are and to make new plans.
I learned long ago that New Year’s resolutions tend have a larger element of wish than resolve.
But there is one resolution that I happily will renew: I will try to recognize that each day is a gift to be appreciated and savored.
The writer can be contacted at billatthelake@gmail.com
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
The Dangers of Certainty
I have been giving a good deal of thought lately to patriotism and to Christianity. More specifically, I’ve been thinking about the number of people who are not the least bit reluctant to make judgments about a person’s patriotism or religious commitment or both.
Although the phenomenon is not new, it reached a fever pitch during the interminable presidential campaign. The political campaigns, aided and abetted by the Internet and the media (especially cable television), gave legitimacy to this judgmental mood.
A few snapshots: A congressional candidate said she thought Barrack Obama was “very anti-American” and that the media should investigate members of Congress who she thought were not “pro America.” A senate candidate tried to pin a Godless label on her opponent, who happened to have been a Presbyterian Sunday School teacher. A vice presidential candidate said she was happy to be campaigning in a part of the country that was “pro America.”
People who count themselves as Christians, many of whom I know and like, happily circulated the most scurrilous items about Obama, cleverly posed in the form of questions, as if that absolved them of responsibility for what they were doing. They implied that he was a secret agent of Islam (perhaps they’ve seen too many reruns of The Manchurian Candidate) and they argued that even if he went to a Christian church, he couldn’t possibly be a patriotic American if he heard the Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s sermons and didn’t walk out (I’m sure they carefully read through Rev. Wright’s sermons and weighed the context of those brief video clips that we all saw.)
No matter how acceptable it might have become, I think judging another’s religion or patriotism is a dangerous game.
In both cases, the people doing the judging are demanding conformity to their ideas of how Christians and patriots should behave.
But patriotism often demands nonconformity.
James Bryce, a British jurist, historian and statesman, observed, “Our country is not the only thing to which we owe our allegiance. It is also owed to justice and to humanity. Patriotism consists not in waving the flag, but in striving that our country shall be righteous as well as strong.”
Mark Twain once wryly observed, “The nation is divided, half patriots and half traitors, and no man can tell which from which.”
On a more serious note, he wrote, “Each man must for himself alone decide what is right and what is wrong, which course is patriotic and which isn’t. You cannot shirk this and be a man. To decide against your conviction is to be an unqualified and excusable traitor, both to yourself and to your country, let men label you as they may.”
Christians probably have a longer history of nonconformity than patriots do.
Thomas Jefferson counted the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom along with the authorship of the Declaration of Independence and the founding of the University of Virginia as the only accomplishments worthy of noting in his epitaph.
The preamble to the statute is a sentence long enough to give an English teacher heart failure, but Jefferson’s points are worth considering:
“God has created the mind free, so that all attempts to influence it by temporal punishments or burdens, or by civil incapacitations, tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness, and are a departure from the plan of the Holy Author of our religion … the impious presumption of legislators and rulers, civil as well as ecclesiastical, who, being themselves but fallible and uninspired men, have assumed dominion over the faith of others, setting up their own opinions and modes of thinking as the only true and infallible, and as such endeavoring to impose them on others, has established and maintained false religions over the greatest part of the world …. .”
Jefferson’s correspondence indicated that he was equally concerned with the interference of the church in affairs of state.
Too bad he isn’t around to offer his insights on the present role of politics in religion and vice versa.
If that’s not enough, the Bible itself has a warning for Christians in Matthew 7:1-2: Do not judge, so that you may not be judged. For with the judgment you make, you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get.
Wearing a flag lapel pin doesn’t make one a patriot. Quoting the Bible doesn’t make one a Christian.
Sinclair Lewis had a grim vision of the danger of mixing religious certainty with patriotic certainty: “When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross.”
Contact the writer at billatthelake@gmail.com
Although the phenomenon is not new, it reached a fever pitch during the interminable presidential campaign. The political campaigns, aided and abetted by the Internet and the media (especially cable television), gave legitimacy to this judgmental mood.
A few snapshots: A congressional candidate said she thought Barrack Obama was “very anti-American” and that the media should investigate members of Congress who she thought were not “pro America.” A senate candidate tried to pin a Godless label on her opponent, who happened to have been a Presbyterian Sunday School teacher. A vice presidential candidate said she was happy to be campaigning in a part of the country that was “pro America.”
People who count themselves as Christians, many of whom I know and like, happily circulated the most scurrilous items about Obama, cleverly posed in the form of questions, as if that absolved them of responsibility for what they were doing. They implied that he was a secret agent of Islam (perhaps they’ve seen too many reruns of The Manchurian Candidate) and they argued that even if he went to a Christian church, he couldn’t possibly be a patriotic American if he heard the Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s sermons and didn’t walk out (I’m sure they carefully read through Rev. Wright’s sermons and weighed the context of those brief video clips that we all saw.)
No matter how acceptable it might have become, I think judging another’s religion or patriotism is a dangerous game.
In both cases, the people doing the judging are demanding conformity to their ideas of how Christians and patriots should behave.
But patriotism often demands nonconformity.
James Bryce, a British jurist, historian and statesman, observed, “Our country is not the only thing to which we owe our allegiance. It is also owed to justice and to humanity. Patriotism consists not in waving the flag, but in striving that our country shall be righteous as well as strong.”
Mark Twain once wryly observed, “The nation is divided, half patriots and half traitors, and no man can tell which from which.”
On a more serious note, he wrote, “Each man must for himself alone decide what is right and what is wrong, which course is patriotic and which isn’t. You cannot shirk this and be a man. To decide against your conviction is to be an unqualified and excusable traitor, both to yourself and to your country, let men label you as they may.”
Christians probably have a longer history of nonconformity than patriots do.
Thomas Jefferson counted the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom along with the authorship of the Declaration of Independence and the founding of the University of Virginia as the only accomplishments worthy of noting in his epitaph.
The preamble to the statute is a sentence long enough to give an English teacher heart failure, but Jefferson’s points are worth considering:
“God has created the mind free, so that all attempts to influence it by temporal punishments or burdens, or by civil incapacitations, tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness, and are a departure from the plan of the Holy Author of our religion … the impious presumption of legislators and rulers, civil as well as ecclesiastical, who, being themselves but fallible and uninspired men, have assumed dominion over the faith of others, setting up their own opinions and modes of thinking as the only true and infallible, and as such endeavoring to impose them on others, has established and maintained false religions over the greatest part of the world …. .”
Jefferson’s correspondence indicated that he was equally concerned with the interference of the church in affairs of state.
Too bad he isn’t around to offer his insights on the present role of politics in religion and vice versa.
If that’s not enough, the Bible itself has a warning for Christians in Matthew 7:1-2: Do not judge, so that you may not be judged. For with the judgment you make, you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get.
Wearing a flag lapel pin doesn’t make one a patriot. Quoting the Bible doesn’t make one a Christian.
Sinclair Lewis had a grim vision of the danger of mixing religious certainty with patriotic certainty: “When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross.”
Contact the writer at billatthelake@gmail.com
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)