By Staff
Johnny Mack Morrow
It is important to come out of the gate strong. A good jump provides the best momentum. Get things under your belt early.
Are there any more clich/s about the significance of a good start?
When it comes to a legislative session, a good start is important. Especially when you consider last session, marked by acrimony and problems in the Senate so severe that it ended with an actual punch.
We passed many bills in the House only to watch them die elsewhere.
The 2008 regular legislative session begins this week, and if we are to make progress on important issues, the House needs to pass some bipartisan bills quickly. This will provide the Senate an opportunity to act on items that have widespread agreement, and hopefully get some momentum.
Speaker of the House Seth Hammett, D-Andalusia, has scheduled five bills for early votes that have widespread support. All the bills are versions that passed unanimously in the House last year, only to see four of them die in the Senate, and another killed by Gov. Riley with a pocket veto.
The first bill is a major piece of campaign finance reform known as the PAC-to-PAC transfer ban. Championed for years by Rep. Jeff McLaughlin, D-Guntersville, the bill would ban or limit a common type of money laundering.
Right now, it is legal for political contributions from corporations or lobbying groups to be transferred from multiple PACs. The ban would stop this and make everything more transparent, always a good thing in a democracy.
Another campaign finance reform bill is sponsored by Rep. Randy Hinshaw, D-Meridianville, requiring people and groups to disclose who pays for commercials or mail sent within 90 days of an election.
We've all seen the "issue ads" by organizations that pop up on television, radio, in our mail boxes, and even at our churches. Right now, there is no way to know who puts up the money for it, an important piece of information.
We all remember what happened in 1999 when we found out only after the election that millions from Mississippi Indian casinos flowed into the anti-education lottery campaign. Regardless of how you felt about the lottery, knowing that out-of-state gambling interests were financing all the negative ads would have been important to know.
Again, sunlight cures a lot of problems.
Transparency in the state budget is also important.
A bill is ready that would ban pass-through money in the state budgets. Sometimes funds sent to state agencies are spent at the discretion of a lawmaker or the governor's office, instead of being clearly labeled in the budget process. While legal, it is hardly open, and the bill we are proposing would eliminate that practice.
Another state spending reform is being sponsored by Rep. Marcel Black, D-Tuscumbia, and would require people seeking to influence the awarding of no-bid state contracts to register as lobbyists with the state Ethics Commission.
There have been millions in no-bid contracts over the past several years, and we try to monitor them as much as possible. Identifying people who try to arrange these deals with the administration brings more sunlight to the process. Last year this bill was killed by the governor, but with prompt action, maybe we can get this through this year.
The fifth piece of legislation would require the governor, the governor's top aides, legislators and other state officials to attend at least one training program on the state ethics law, given by the state Ethics Commission.
In last year's version, lobbyists would also have been required to attend a training as well. When everyone knows the rules and everything is out in the open, improvement in state government will happen.
Let us hope these five bills sail through both branches of the Legislature and land early on the governor's desk for his signature. It will be a good start to a tough session, but maybe early progress can give us momentum we need.
All these bills have a common theme: sunlight is the best disinfectant.
Now that is a clich/ everyone can agree on.
Johnny Mack Morrow is a state representative for Franklin County. His column appears each Wednesday.