The
Gold Dome is full of Chamber of Commerce “conservatives” who do a great job for
special interests and Georgia cities and counties, but failed to pass Obamacare
and Common Core nullification laws. They
continue to avoid repealing Regionalism and UN Agenda 21 implementation. The
“over the top” Pro-Gun Bill was a headline getter and a pro-hunter move, but it
was low priority compared to nullifying Obamacare and Common Core. It is clear that Georgia politicians want to
get all the printed federal grant money it can get, that’s $26 billion this
year. Their Chamber of Commerce friends
are counting on federal dollars for their economic development boondoggles.
This is governance by bribery. Taxpayers
will end up paying for all these $billions with inflation. The tab is over 400%; that’s the Fed’s increase
in the money supply. We can pay for
these boondoggles with inflation of 10% for the next 40 years.
We need
strong bills to protect our electric rates from the EPA carbon scam. Erecting a
solar farm to mollify the Obama administration is a sign of weakness. Global Warming is a hoax. By pretending it isn’t our politicians are
admitting that they are either corrupt or stupid. Failing to pass legislation
to end the charade is treason.
The
following article will give you some reference to the Georgia #1 in Corruption
story, but it shows that these studies don’t expose how ignored we taxpayers
are when try to work with the state legislature.
Norb
Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader
National
study says Georgia is most corruption-prone state Posted: March 19, 2012 by Larry Peterson
A new study
ranks Georgia politics the country’s worst for accountability and openness —
and the most at risk for corruption. Georgia is among seven states with grades
of F following a yearlong-plus inquiry by three groups.
The Peach State
flunked in nine of the 14 categories used by the Washington, D.C.-based Center
for Public Integrity.
Examples:
public access to information, legislative and congressional redistricting,
legislative accountability, campaign finance and lobbying disclosure.
Working with
two other organizations, Public Radio International and Global Integrity, the
center gave Georgia D’s in two categories and a D- in another. The state’s best
grades were a B in internal auditing and C- for judicial accountability.
The study cited
what it called loophole-ridden laws, toothless enforcement, secret decision
making, and weak rules for disclosing conflicts of interest.
Freebies galore
It said our
political process is awash in special-interest cash and heavily influenced by
lobbyists about whom the public has too little information. “Some 658 state
workers,” said an accompanying report by investigative reporter and editor Jim
Walls, “accepted sports tickets, speaking fees, fancy meals and other
gratuities over a two-year span.” But the state hasn’t fined a vendor for
failing to disclose such gifts since 1999, project manager Caitlin Ginley said.
Walls said committees
set up by governors and legislative leaders exploited exceptions in the law
that let them collect hundreds of thousands of dollars. “Collectively,” he
wrote, “executives of insurance companies, public utilities and other regulated
entities have become the largest single source of campaign money for regulators
running for re-election. “Utility officials raise money and work to help
re-elect incumbents; a lobbyist for the cable TV industry managed one
incumbent’s campaign in 2008.”
Reaction varied
Reaction varied
from praise to surprise, skepticism or silence. At one end is William Perry,
executive director of Common Cause Georgia, a nonpartisan political watchdog
group. “In some areas,” Perry said, “their assessments are a little on the
generous side.”
At the other
end is Rick Thompson, a former state ethics enforcement official who advises
officials such as Gov. Nathan Deal on ethics law compliance. “I think they
hired Walls to do a hit piece on Georgia politics,” Thompson said, questioning
the center’s decision to “farm out” research to reporters. He noted that a
report the center did with its own researchers said Georgia ranked sixth-best
in the country in 2006 for public access to legislative financial disclosure. Thompson
speculated that a fairer mark in some categories in which the new study flunked
Georgia would be “a B or a high C.”
Kennesaw State
University political science professor Kerwin Swint said the new report “looks
pretty damning.” “I would have thought we’d be in the bottom half,” Swint said,
“but I’m surprised that we’re dead last.” Others said practices the center
seems to believe discourage corruption don’t always do so.
A few wondered
out loud why New Jersey, marred by rampant corruption in recent years, drew the
top overall rating and was one of five states that earned a B. None received an
A.
Study process
defended
The center
defended its methods. It said it hired a reporter in every state capitol. “Each
dug in and answered 330 questions about how their state handles transparency
and accountability,” a center statement said.
University of
Georgia political scientist Charles Bullock said it wasn’t always obvious that
the center interpreted responses correctly.
But the
statement said “those answers were ... scrubbed by peer reviewers, fact
checkers and editors.” Ginley conceded that New Jersey’s high marks sounds
“more than a little counter intuitive.”
States with
histories of corruption, she said, often crack down on such behavior. “That’s
apparently the case in New Jersey, where a series of scandals helped bring
about some of the strongest ethics laws in the country,” Ginley added.
A recent
University of Illinois study sought to identify the most corrupt 10 states.
Georgia didn’t make the list. But Ginley said the center’s rankings aren’t
political scandal score sheets. Instead, she said, they test the strength of
laws and practices that encourage openness and deter corruption.
Walls cited
sleaze that he said was common during more than a century of Democratic
dominance and has continued during more recent Republican ascendancy.
He noted that
Republicans promised ethics reform if voters turned the state over to them, but
said they have done little to deliver on that promise.
Other current
problems
Among Georgia’s
current ethical woes, Walls and Ginley said, are:
• The
legislature often shuts out the public. The Senate GOP caucus meets secretly to
determine the fate of every major bill. House budget writers do likewise
concerning key spending measures.
• After
spending cuts, a state ethics panel nearly quit doing investigations and
focused on archiving candidates’ and lobbyists’ disclosure. Its top two
staffers were forced out last year as they sought subpoenas for records from
newly elected Deal, whose office declined to comment on the report.
• The
60,000-plus reports the panel receives annually are seldom audited, so
candidates, lobbyists and donors usually may submit wrong or sketchy data with
impunity.
• Generally,
only elected officials and state department heads must reveal financial
interests. In 2011, members of most state panels were exempted. Instead, they
merely must state yearly that their public actions don’t affect their private
interests.
• Banking
regulators operate in secret, even as Georgia leads the nation in bank
failures.
• Statewide
office-seekers, but not lawmakers — who are at least as likely to be lobbied —
must report business they’ve done with lobbyists or their clients.
• Georgia’s
Open Records Act leaves it largely to the legislature and judges to decide what
records they’ll release. Erratic enforcement of the law sometimes keeps the
public in the dark.
Reform attempts
Even after
ethics questions forced Glenn Richardson from the House speakership in 2009, the
report noted, reform efforts largely stalled. One would have curtailed campaign
contributions, lobbyists’ gifts to lawmakers and how much candidates may
transfer to other campaigns or political groups.
Instead,
current Speaker David Ralston backed a successful measure that — among other
things — required more lobbyist disclosures and raised fines for some
violations. Ralston, whose office didn’t respond to a request for comment,
argued that insufficient disclosure was the main issue that needed to be addressed.
Ralston has been criticized for accepting a $17,000 European trip paid for by
lobbyists who support high-speed rail.
“The
legislature,” Swint said, “has been largely impervious to ethics reform. It
seems not to care. The speaker is right that transparency is important, but it
shouldn’t be a crutch for avoiding true accountability.”
Common Cause’s
Perry said he hopes the new report will spur the legislature to push harder for
reforms. He wants more lobbyist disclosure, limits on lobbyist gifts, tougher
enforcement and nonpartisan redistricting.
“We don’t have
bad people in office who want to be corrupt,” he said. “But we have an
environment that makes it easy to be corrupted. “We’ve seen some big reforms
that have been driven by scandal. But why should we have to wait for one before
we do something?”
http://savannahnow.com/news/2012-03-19/national-study-says-georgia-most-corruption-prone-state#.U6Wf7-kg8qc
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