Archive for: October 23, 2006
October 23, 2006
John Tyson is the Democratic nominee for attorney general. He has spent the last 14 years as the district attorney of Mobile County, and was recently recognized for one of his initiatives in that position.
Tyson’s Helping Families program — which sends social workers into the schools to try to help troubled students before they land in the juvenile justice system — was just featured in Education Week, a magazine distributed nationally.
Everyone seems to like this program except Troy King, the incumbent attorney general.
King called it a “fuzzy, feel-good, liberal social program.”
“It is not the attorney general’s job to run social programs,” King said, adding that he has heard Tyson say that the purpose of such initiatives is to keep people out of jail. “If the attorney general is not going to put people in jail, who is?”
Wow…. just… wow. He threw out the “fuzzy,” the “feel-good,” and the “liberal social program.” There are so many things wrong in those few short phrases that it just boggles the mind. I can agree that the attorney general is not constitutionally required to implement this program statewide, but here’s the big difference between Tyson and King. Tyson sees his job as “keeping the peace.” King sees his job as “thrower of people into jail.” Troy King’s last comment about, “If the attorney general is not going to put people in jail, who is?” is especially telling.
Troy King takes issue with Tyson’s “social programs.” I know that name — social programs — is frightening for many people, but let’s think about what Tyson’s social programs are and compare them to an expected Troy King approach.
- Tyson started the program to guarantee mothers who abandon their unwanted children would not face criminal prosecution if they safely left them at a hospital under certain conditions. The Troy King approach would be to mandate capital punishment for mothers who left unwanted children unsafely. Which is more effective at saving lives and preventing crime?
- Tyson looks at all the evidence that suggests that criminal behavior in adults is tracable to certain characteristics in children. He therefore helped implement “social programs” to address this behavior in an effort to curb the number of future criminals. The Troy King approach would be to jump for joy at the thought of so many future criminals to throw in jail.
I honestly think some of John Tyson’s ideas might go too far, but I generally subscribe to the opinion of an editorial released by the Birmingham News today:
Imagine a public health leader who sees her job as treating diseases, not preventing them. A preacher who believes it’s his job to condemn us when we sin, not to encourage us to adhere to paths of righteousness. An auto mechanic who sees the frayed belt but doesn’t do anything to avert the inevitable breakdown.
Troy King wants to fight crime — which is an admirable trait for an attorney general. But when it comes to fighting crime Tyson has him beat on experience. Tyson also seems to have a true passion for keeping the peace, which appears to be a characteristic our incumbent attorney general is completely lacking.
In the war of competing information regarding the Stan Pate ads that were pulled from the air, the Montgomery Advertiser is the latest to offer their opinion in an editorial released today. They come to the defense of Bob Riley’s record of no-bid contracts. Not having access to the report from the State Examiners of Public Accounts or the report from the legislative Contract Review Committee, I can only assume that the Advertiser’s claims about the documents are correct.
Having said that, I have to take issue with one thing they said.
But readers also need to understand that it is not in the state’s best interest to bid all contracts. Do taxpayers really want the lowest-bidding attorneys handling lawsuits for the state when tens of millions of public dollars are at stake? Do they want out-of-work engineers to design bridges and tunnels chosen simply because they are willing to work for less than their counterparts? There are situations where awarding state work to the lowest bidder simply does not make sense.
Just because the state puts out a competitive bidding process on a project does not mean that they are mandated to take the lowest bid. Price is certainly an important factor, if not the primary factor. But just because I put in a bid to build the next-generation fighter aircraft for $0.25 a piece doesn’t mean the DoD is going to award me the contract. After the bids are proposed, many factors go into the decision-making process. A big factor is a company’s prior dealings with the state. Having said this, they are correct that there are many purchases and projects that should probably not be bid on.
They also correctly point out that many of the no-bid contracts listed in the report could not have been stopped by the governor. The judicial system of Alabama, for instance, is constitutionally forbidden to be controlled by the governor for obvious reasons. There are also contracts listed that were issued by the legislature. This state also has a strange desire to keep executive offices independent of each other — the state board of education or the secretary of state, for example, are semi-autonomous from the governor and many of the no-bid contracts are from these agencies.
Most telling of all, however, is a letter from the legislative committee whose report was cited in the Stan Pate commercial. The chairman of that committee, Sen. Tom Butler, responded to the controversy:
As a Democrat and chairman of the Joint Legislative Contract Review Committee, I have been more than pleased with the way Gov. Riley has brought accountability to the state’s contracting process in an effort to give taxpayers the best return on their dollar. […]
No other governor in history has been as thorough as Gov. Riley in awarding contracts based on competition in my opinion.
This is not likely to influence the election at all. At best, Stan Pate is grasping for something to attack the governor on. I would think he would have something better than this.
U.S. Rep. Artur Davis (D-Birmingham) held a town hall meeting in Birmingham this last Thursday on public transit in the area. A panel included the public transportation and planning officials, the president of the local Chamber of Commerce, and an out-of-town planning commissioner who helped to develop the public transportation system for Charlotte, NC.
The event was well-announced in advance, was held by a U.S. Congressman, and by all accounts was well put-together and amiacable to civil discussion. It’s curious, then, why so many elected officials didn’t show up. As the Birmingham News points out:
- Out of 26 state legislators that represent Jefferson County, only 3 officeholders and 2 candidates showed up:
- Sen. Jabo Waggoner
- Rep. Linda Coleman
- Rep. Paul Demarco
- Candidate Patricia Todd
- Candidate Rod Scott
- Out of 5 county commissioners, only 1 officeholder showed up
- Commissioner Sheila Smoot
- Out of 9 Birmingham city councilmen, only 3 showed up
- Valarie Abbott
- Carol Reynolds
- Steven Hoyt
- Out all the area municipalities, only 1 mayor showed up
- Mayor Loxcil Tuck of Tarrant
There’s no way the other people didn’t know the meeting was happening — if they didn’t know then they probably shouldn’t be in office. It had the respectability that Artur Davis brings to the table. I’m really curious why so many elected officials and candidates didn’t attend.
The Cato Institute is a libertarian think tank in D.C. I highly respect them as nonpartisan, freedom-loving policy analysts. They just started a fiscal policy report card on the nation’s governors and Riley got a failing grade. Why, you ask? Three things were cited by the Decatur Daily:
- He followed his tax plan with a 26-cents-a-pack cigarette tax that did become law.
- State budgets grew more than 10 percent in real per capita terms.
- Riley “has generally been reluctant to keep the big-spending Legislature on a shorter leash.”
The report was also likely influenced by his billion dollar tax proposal, which Cato didn’t like. The 10% increase has a lot to do with education expenses, which is leading the Riley camp to react that Cato and Riley have different priorities when it comes to a state budget.
All I have to say is this: lowest unemployment ever, education is an investment, lowered taxes, operating on a surplus.
The Decatur Daily is looking into the claims made by the Stan Pate commercials. The commercials accussed the Riley administration of distributing $1 billion in no-bid contracts, but were pulled after the Riley campaign complained that they were not accurate. According to the Decatur Daily, however:
In fact, state records show $1.01 billion in contracts that did not go through the state’s official competitive bid process were submitted to the Legislature’s Contract Review Committee during the first three years and nine months of Riley’s administration.
The contracts are legal, but Riley used talking points against no-bid contracts when he ran against Siegelman in 2002. He pledged not to do the same. The Riley campaign reacts by saying that these no-bid contracts are different and that the report does not reflect the work Riley has done to require state agencies to competitive proposals for all outside work and purchases.
I should point out that the Decatur Daily is reguarly accussed of having a liberal bias.
The gay-bashing phone recordings sent out by Republican Chairman Twinkle Cavanaugh are more widespread than I first posted. According to the Bimingham News:
Alabama Republicans have used telephone messages linking four Democratic lawmakers to the party’s House District 54 nominee, Patricia Todd, and a “gay rights agenda” that they claim Todd will push in the Legislature.
The ads targetted districts with Republicans running against House Seaker Seth Hammet (D-Andalusia), Rep. Joe Carothers (D-Dothan), Rep. Terry Spicer (D-Elba) in addition to Rep. Lea Fite (D-Anniston). This is in addition to the ad in House District 5 in Limestone County, where Ronnie Coffman (R) faces Henry White (D).
The Public Service Commission is a board created by state law that is responsible for regulating the utilities in the state. Because of their built-in monopoly (when was the last time you decided which electric company to use), market forces can’t be expected to keep prices reasonable through competition. Basically, when the power company wants to raise their rates, they have to build a case and present it to the commission. Associate commissioners receive a $90,000 salary and are expected to work full-time. They have additional duties on top of approving rate increases and surcharges, but this is the power that most concerns the average voter.
The commission consists of a president and two associate members. They are elected to four year terms, but it is staggered so that you elect the president during U.S. Presidential elections and the commissioners during mid-terms. This year we are electing the two associate commissioners.
The first seat pits incumbent Jan Cook (D) against challenger John Rice (R). Recent investigations by the Mobile Press-Register’s Ben Raines have revealed that the incumbent Jan Cook has received as much as 70 to 76 percent of her campaign funding in the last six years from PACs affiliated with Alabama Power and its primary fuel provider, Drummond Coal Company. State law prohibits a utility from donating directly to the campaign of a commissioner, but since this money was filtered through a PAC it may be technically legal. Alabama Power officials argue that they have no real control over how a PAC ultimately distributes the money it gives them. Ben Raines has also discovered that many of Cook’s items on her financial disclosure forms are improperly itemized and include a lot of money paid to relatives, car dealerships, and herself. Raines’ reporting has led to a new AG opinion about campaign finance law and an investigation into Cook’s campaign finances.
John Rice is a former state senator and has made a good living in real estate. Looking at his campaign finance reports, he has not reached the threshold of campaign contributions required to file an itemized report ($10,000). It also says here his name is not Jan Cook. I’ll be voting John Rice (R).
The second seat is being vacated by George Wallace, Jr. (R) who decided not to run for re-election in a failed bid at the Republican nomination for lieutenant governor. The two contenders for his seat are Susan Parker (D) and Perry Hooper (R). Parker has previously held office as state auditor for one term until 2002 when she ran and lost an election for U.S. Senate against Jeff Sessions. The only criticism I can find about her is that she is supported by the AEA — she spent 25 years in higher education. If anything, critics might charge that she is relatively unknown compared to her opponent.
Her opponent is Perry Hooper, who spent nearly two decades as a state representative before barely being ousted in the GOP primary in 2002. His loss was due in no small part for his being fined the highest-ever amount by the Alabama Ethics Commission in 2001 for not reporting a $100,000 commission he received from an insurance company after delivering multi-million dollar state contract to them. In the race for PSC this year, however, he managed to beat another long-serving senator who eventually lost to his own party — John Amari. It hasn’t been good news for Hooper since that election, however. The same reporter — Ben Raines — also showed that Hooper received $100,000 in utility contributions through their PAC network. I’ll take a relative unknown to a known unethical candidate — I’ll be voting for Susan Parker (D).
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