Worcester County Freedom Trail

Interesting article from MassGOP State Committeewoman Linda Rapoza of Fall River. I am 100% with her on the need for part time legislatures. With government as a full-time job, the institution will continue to do what it can, like any business, to sustain itself and grow. Unfortunately, in the case of government, this has devastating consequences for the rest of the people. They have to shoulder an ever-expanding burden in the form of ever-expanding taxes.

From the Herald News, “Founders didn’t plan for fascism:”

The founders, who risked life and limb to leave European socialism behind for the novel idea of a nation built on individual liberty, worried about the future of an America ruled by a corrupt crew of dictator wannabees.

They wrote amendments to their brilliant document in the precise order that they did, the first being what they believed to be most important: “Congress shall make no law… abridging the freedom of speech…”

Now that Democrats are in charge, they’re scrambling to silence their critics, shut down their opponents, and eliminate debate. In the finest traditions of fascism, Democrats have decided that one medium of interchange — talk radio — needs to be dealt with for “fairness” sake, as if the liberal viewpoint is nowhere else to be found. Who makes the decision in a free society about who gets to talk and who needs to be shut down? And why won’t this type of “fairness” apply to the press or to television news networks?

What we see developing is not the conservative definition of small government; it’s the definition of tyranny.

Our rights are derived from God, not from politicians who think they’re gods. Those at the top of the political food chain who feed at the trough of the taxpayer believe they’re more essential than those they represent.

While Massachusetts legislators were busy building an entitlement society for their voting blocks, they were designing their own life of entitlement with automatic pay raises, per diem allowances, and “stipends” as high as $35,000 on top of their bloated salaries, outrageous pensions and privileged health care plans. This is grotesquely convoluted.

Surely, we can manage to get along without these people and their entourage of paper pushers a lot easier than doing without the necessary services of police officers, firefighters and trash pickup.

Idea for the next ballot question: Part-time legislators at part-time salaries with no perks or pensions. Less time pushing paper equals less damage to the country.

I’ve been so caught up in the tsunami generated by the “stimulus” plan in DC, that I totally missed this nasty little tidbit. Gov Deval Patrick wants to install spy chips in the cars of Massachusetts residents so he can track where we go and levy a surcharge based on mileage.

It’s bad enough his administration knows when I go through which tolls on the Mass Pike. There’s no way in heck I want give his cronies the ability to monitor my trips to the library or political meetings or church. Where’s the ACLU when there are real freedoms to fight for?

The Patrick adminstration’s rationale for the spy chips is that because they’ve been pushing very hard for residents to drive more fuel efficient cars, they are losing gas tax revenue. Heaven forbid they try to find ways to cut costs, like getting rid of some of the management overhead on the government dole.

At the rate Massachusetts taxes are spiraling out of control, I’m thinking it’s going to be cheaper to move out of state and just travel back here to see clients every once in awhile. Maybe New Hampshire, as they have the added benefit of having just passed one of the first state sovereignty bills.

From the AP:

A tentative plan to overhaul Massachusetts’ transportation system by using GPS chips to charge motorists a quarter-cent for every mile behind the wheel has angered some drivers.

“It’s outrageous, it’s kind of Orwellian, Big Brotherish,” said Sen. Scott Brown, R-Wrentham, who drafted legislation last week to prohibit the practice. “You’d need a whole new department of cronies just to keep track of it.” [Kudos to Senator Brown!]

A draft overhaul transport plan prepared for Gov. Deval Patrick says implementing a Vehicle Miles Traveled system to replace the gas tax makes sense. “A user-based system, collected electronically, is a fair way to pay for our transportation needs in the future,” it says.

Patrick, who had yet to settle on any of the ideas contained in the draft, told reporters last week, “I like any idea that is faster, cheaper, simpler.”

The idea behind the program is simple: As cars become more fuel efficient or powered by electricity, gas tax revenues decline. Yet the cost of building and maintaining roads and bridges is increasing. A state could cover that gap by charging drivers precisely for the mileage their vehicles put on public roads.

Today we taped the newest Central Mass Chronicles TV show (Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Thursday @ 7pm on Charter TV3). The topics were: the City Council retreat, taxing dorm rooms, and waiving the age limit for Jose Rivera. Here’s my take.

Worcester City Council Retreat
Mayor Konnie Lukes has set up an off-site retreat for the Worcester City Council to work on the big issues facing the city. It will be a facilitated encounter at Tower Hill Botanic Gardens in Boylston. So far, so good. But Councilor Rick Rushton was quick to object, showing more than a little hypocrisy. He complained that the meeting is too far for Worcester residents to attend, and why are we holding it in Boylston instead of Worcester. Just in case he forgot, Rushton has been pushing hard for regionalization, aka we’re all in this together so let’s work side by side. So Boylston is just as good a place as any to hold the retreat. Personally, I think Rushton is just doing his usual antics in front of the press so he can say, “look how important I am.”

I like Boyston. And I especially like the idea of a moderated retreat for our City Councilors (but one that’s longer than the couple of hours that President Obama tried in DC this week). I’m in high tech; we do off-sites all the time and they’re great for brainstorming. Which is exactly what we need now. We need our elected officials to stop and think seriously about the challenges we face. The public City Hall meetings are the time when all citizens should be encouraged to attend. A brainstorming session should be off-limits to the press and to voters so the politicians can stop politicking and start thinking.

College Dorm Tax
Councilor Michael Germain has proposed a tax on the dorm rooms of Worcester’s colleges. Desperate for ideas that will help the city budget, he’s thinking about how to increase revenues. I’m all for that, but this is exactly the wrong way to go about it.

Looking from the outside in, what is Worcester known for? A few freak snowstorms that make the national news and our many institutions of higher learning. Why would we want to penalize these organizations or their customers (the students and their families) when they are the backbone of the city? Their faculty and staff are local residents. Many of the students are local residents. Why would we want to create the nation’s ONLY tax on dorm rooms and push people away with higher prices at exactly the time they can least afford it?

Let’s do something that will raise revenues by attracting new business, not taxing the few businesses still left in Worcester. Let’s get that corporate tax rate back in line with the region. Worcester’s business tax rate is over 20%, about 2X what you find around the region. What business in their right mind would subject themselves to that kind of onerous tax when they can get everything they need in Shrewsbury or Westborough or Marlborough? If it wasn’t for WPI and Gateway Park, and the Mass School of Pharmacy, there’d be no new business in the city at all.

Waiving Age Requirements
Less than 10 years ago, the Worcester City Council created a local law that forced an age requirement on police and firefighters. If you’re not between 19 and 32, don’t bother applying. Unless you’re a famous boxer and all-round nice guy like Jose Rivera, that is. The City Council has now passed an exception to that law for Rivera, who is currently 36 years old. I have nothing against Rivera and he is in great shape. I’m sure he can chase down criminals. But so can many others around town who are beyond the age of 32.

The problem I have is when politicians don’t think through laws before they put them on the books. In this case, the Worcester City Council passed the age requirements law when their real concern was physical fitness (as in the case of Jose Rivera). If that’s the case, then require all applicants to pass a physical test. But don’t restrict their age as that’s a non-issue.

Our politicians have got to spend more time thinking and less time politicking. Otherwise we end up with situations like this. We want to be nice to a nice guy like Rivera, but that requires exceptions to laws that probably shouldn’t be laws anyway. So now we have to spend taxpayer dollars by handling the exceptions when we should be spending time thinking about how to bring more jobs to the city so we can put that new graduation class from the Police Academy to work.

I’m sure at least several governments around the world are applying the latest and greatest technology to find Osama bin Laden. Here’s an interesting story about how geographers put “distance decay theory” and “island biology” to work on the problem. They think they’ve honed in on his whereabouts. Love those scientists and mathematicians!

Here’s the full article in Scientific Computing:

While U.S. intelligence officials have spent more than seven years searching for Osama bin Laden, geographers say they now have a good idea of where the terrorist leader was at the end of 2001 and may know where he has been in the years since.

In a new study published online by the MIT International Review, the UCLA researchers report that simple facts, remote-sensing satellite imagery and fundamental principles of geography place the mastermind behind the September 11 attacks against the U.S. in one of three buildings in the northwest Pakistan town of Parachinar, in the Kurram tribal region near the border with Afghanistan. The findings are based on the last information on bin Laden’s whereabouts to be made public by U.S. intelligence sources, who have closely guarded the details of any efforts to locate him.

“We believe our work represents the first scientific approach to establishing bin Laden’s current location,” said John A. Agnew, study co-author and UCLA geography professor. “The methods are repeatable and could easily be updated with new information obtained by the U.S. intelligence community.”

The findings rely on two principles used in geography to predict the distribution of wildlife, primarily for the purposes of designing approaches to conservation. The first, known as distance-decay theory, holds that as one travels farther away from a precise location with a specific composition of species — or, in this case, a specific composition of cultural and physical factors — the probability of finding spots with that same specific composition decreases exponentially. The second, island biogeographic theory, holds that large and close islands have larger immigration rates and will support more species than smaller, more isolated islands.

Inspired by distance-decay theory, the seven-member team started by drawing concentric circles around Tora Bora on a satellite map of the area at a distance of 10 kilometers — or 6.1 miles — apart.

“The farther bin Laden moves from his last reported location into the more secular parts of Pakistan or into India, the greater the probability that he will be in an area with a different cultural composition, thereby increasing the probability of his being captured or eliminated,” Gillespie said.

Then, informed by island biogeographic theory, the researchers scoured the rings for “city islands” — distinctly separate settlements of considerable size.

“Island biology theory predicts that he would find his way to the largest but least isolated city of that area,” said Gillespie, an authority on measuring and modeling biodiversity on Earth from space. “If you get stuck on an island, you would want it to be Hawaii rather than one with a single palm tree. It’s a matter of resources.”

The approach netted 26 cities within a 12.4-mile radius of Tora Bora on imagery from Landsat Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+), a global archive of satellite photos managed by NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey. With a 2.7-square-mile footprint, Parachinar turned out to be the largest and fourth-least isolated city, the team determined.

“Based on bin Laden’s last known location in Tora Bora, we estimate that he must have traveled 1.9 miles over a 13,000-foot-high pass into Kurram and then headed for the largest city, which turns out to be Parachinar,” said Agnew, who is the current president of the Association of American Geographers, the field’s leading scholarly organization.

Faced with the prospect of picking from more than 1,000 structures clearly portrayed in the satellite imagery of Parachinar, the team decided to come up with a short list of the criteria that bin Laden would need for housing, based on well-known information about him, including his height (between 6′4″ and 6′6″), his medical condition (apparently in need of regular dialysis and, therefore, electricity to run the machine) and several basic assumptions, such as a need for security, protection, privacy and overhead cover to shield him from being spotted by planes, helicopters and satellites.

So, they looked for buildings that could house someone taller than 6′4″ and were surrounded by walls more than nine feet tall (both as judged by mid-afternoon shadows depicted on the satellite imagery), and that had more than three rooms, space separating them from nearby structures, electricity and a thick tree canopy.

Only three structures fit the criteria. The buildings also appeared to be the best fortified and among the largest in Parachinar. Two are clearly residences, the study states. The third may be a prison. But whatever the third structure is, it has “one of the best maintained gardens in all of Parachinar,” the study says.

For those of you who attend business conferences, you know the whole “breakout” scenario. Divide a larger group into smaller subgroups and discuss specialized topics. Well, it appears that President Obama thinks this is a good approach to solving today’s economic challenges.

I’m all for brainstorming, but I think Obama’s taken it a bit too far. Today he gave attendees at the Fiscal Responsibility Summit the afternoon to figure things out. I’m impressed. These must be really smart people. Where have they been hiding? Imagine how many problems they could have solved if they’d been at work for the last few months!

[President Obama] summoned allies, adversaries and outside experts to what the White House characterized as a summit on the nation’s future financial health one week after triumphantly putting his signature on the gargantuan spending-and-tax-cut measure designed to stop the country’s economic free fall and, ultimately, reverse the recession now months into its second year.

Obama said there would be another summit next week on health care reform. “It’s not that I’ve got summititis here,” he added wryly.

The President also gave what was supposed to be an encouraging talk about how he’s not going to drag us any further into the mire. Umm, couldn’t he have thought of this BEFORE he spent $800B of our tax dollars?!?

Urging strict future restraint even as current spending soars, President Barack Obama pledged on Monday to dramatically slash the skyrocketing annual budget deficit as he started to dole out the record $787 billion economic stimulus package he signed last week.

“If we confront this crisis without also confronting the deficits that helped cause it, we risk sinking into another crisis down the road,” the president warned, promising to cut the yearly deficit in half by the end of his four-year term. “We cannot simply spend as we please and defer the consequences.”

He said he would reinstitute a pay-as-you-go rule that calls for spending reductions to match increases and would shun what he said were the past few years’”casual dishonesty of hiding irresponsible spending with clever accounting tricks.” He called the long-term solvency of Social Security “the single most pressing fiscal challenge we face by far” and said reforming health care, including burgeoning entitlement programs, was a huge priority.

Wall Street seemed unimpressed by all the talk. The Dow Jones industrials dropped 251 points for the day.

UPDATE: Apparently Larry Summers wasn’t very impressed with the breakouts. He fell asleep at the podium! From the Financial Times:

Although Lawrence Summers, head of the National Economic Council, fell asleep on the podium, most attendees, including Republicans, appear to have appreciated the exercise. There was even some light-heartedness.

There are a lot of things to like about Gov Mitt Romney, especially when it comes to his fiscal conservatism. Today it’s reported that his PAC donated to House Republicans who voted against the appalling stimulus bill. You go, Mitt!

Former Governor Mitt Romney’s Free and Strong America PAC today sent $1,000 checks to a group of House Republicans targeted by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) for their votes against the wasteful $800 billion stimulus bill.

Said Romney: “What Republicans wanted was a bill to strengthen the economy. What the Democrats passed was a bill to stimulate government. We are committed to helping these courageous Republicans defend their position and fend off political attacks.”

Romney called the President’s stimulus package “a missed opportunity to make this country stronger.” Referring to the 12 House Republicans as the “Undaunted Dozen,” Romney praised them for “standing up for fiscal responsibility and saying no to spending abuse.”

Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited with Pope Benedict in Rome this week. After her visit, she issued a press release to talk about all the wonderful things she’s been doing as a good, faithful Catholic. What she failed to mention was the rebuke she received on the issue of her support for abortion. The Pope takes pro-life issues very seriously and the Vatican issued its own release that is quite clear on the Church’s stance on pro-abortion politicians.

From the Catholic News Agency:

After her meeting with the Holy Father this morning, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi released a statement highlighting the positive aspects of the meeting but ignoring the Pope’s correction of her support for legal abortion.

In her statement, Pelosi says:

“It is with great joy that my husband, Paul, and I met with His Holiness, Pope Benedict XVI, today. In our conversation, I had the opportunity to praise the Church’s leadership in fighting poverty, hunger, and global warming, as well as the Holy Father’s dedication to religious freedom and his upcoming trip and message to Israel. I was proud to show His Holiness a photograph of my family’s papal visit in the 1950s, as well as a recent picture of our children and grandchildren.”

In contrast, the Holy See released a statement regarding the meeting noting that Pope Benedict spoke “of the requirements of the natural moral law” and also “the Church’s consistent teaching on the dignity of human life from conception until natural death, which enjoin all Catholics, and especially legislators, jurists, and those responsible for the common good of society, to work in cooperation with all men and women of good will in creating a just system of laws capable of protecting human life at all stages of development.”

Comparing the two releases, Catholic commentator and author George Weigel responded saying that the statement from the office of Pelosi makes it obvious that there is more to the story: “that Pelosi, who shamelessly trumpets her ‘ardent’ Catholicism while leading congressional Democrats in a continuing assault on what the Catholic Church regards as the inalienable human rights of the unborn, was trying to recruit Benedict XVI to Team Nancy.”

But Pope Benedict wasn’t swayed, Weigel told the National Review Online.

During the meeting, the Holy Father told her “politely but unmistakably” that her pro-abortion support puts “her in serious difficulties as a Catholic, which was his obligation as a pastor.”

Furthermore, Weigel asserts, Pope Benedict was directing his words to other pro-abortion Catholics in the United States: Joe Biden, Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, Barbara Mikulski, Rose DeLauro, Kathleen Sebelius, and others clarifying to them that the Catholic stance against abortion “is not some weird Catholic hocus-pocus; it’s a first principle of justice than can be known by reason.”

“It is a ‘requirement of the natural moral law’,” says Weigel, “that is, the moral truths we can know by thinking about what is right and what is wrong — to defend the inviolability of innocent human life. You don’t have to believe in papal primacy to know that; you don’t have do believe in seven sacraments, or the episcopal structure of the Church, or the divinity of Christ, to know that. You don’t even have to believe in God to know that. You only have to be a morally serious human being, willing to work through a moral argument — which, of course, means being the kind of person who understands that moral truth cannot be reduced to questions of feminist political correctness or partisan political advantage.”

Though it is apparent that Pelosi is “deeply confused about what her church teaches on the morality of abortion,” Weigel continues, she “has now been informed, and by a world-class intellectual who happens to be the universal pastor of the Catholic Church, that she is, in fact, confused, and that both her spiritual life and her public service are in jeopardy because of that.”

Weigel adds that even though President Obama is not Catholic, “he should understand that he will get the same message if, as expected, he meets with His Holiness later this year.”

All the chatter today is about Gov Deval Patrick and the new gas tax he’s about to propose on Beacon Hill. So the Boston Globe, in all it’s wisdom, has a poll running: Would you rather pay for a toll hike or higher gas taxes? That’s it. Only two alternatives. Do you want higher taxes or do you want higher taxes? How painfully typical of this state’s rabidly liberal media and legislature. Apparently it slipped their minds (and our Governor’s) that there’s another alternative, like NO NEW TAXES & CUT SPENDING.

Here are a few tidbits from the MassGOP on the double talk that’s been coming from Patrick on this topic. The sad part is, today he will propose to double the state gas tax, a 19 cent increase that will leave Massachusetts residents holding the bag on the highest gas tax burden in the country. Our politicians got us into this mess, why aren’t they the ones that have to suffer to get us out?

MassGOP Chair Jennifer Nassour said, “When tolls go up, the blame will rest squarely on the Patrick Administration for squandering two years and waiting until the 11th hour to propose a flawed transportation plan. A gas tax increase should be off the table, and the Democrats should get serious about passing real reforms.  Massachusetts families should not be asked to pay the highest gas tax in the nation in order to keep feeding the gluttonous appetite of state government.”
 
Deval Patrick and the Gas Tax Hike
 
Today, Governor Patrick will propose to nearly double the state gas tax: “After months of private rumination and public mixed signals, Governor Deval Patrick will propose a 19 cent increase in the state’s gasoline tax today, in an attempt to solve the increasingly complex maze of problems confronting the state’s aging and debt-ridden transportation system. Patrick’s plan would give Massachusetts one of the highest gas taxes in the nation.” (Boston Globe, 2/20/09)
 
Candidate Patrick vs. Governor Patrick: On October 9th, 2006, Governor Patrick responded “Yes, I do,” when asked if he would rule out gas tax and toll increases: Asked if he would rule out gas tax and toll increases as governor, Patrick said “Yes, I do.” (SHNS, 2/10/09)
 
Governor Patrick’s gas tax hike will make the combined gas tax burden 60.9 cents per gallon, the highest in the nation (Motor Fuel Taxes, http://www.api.org/statistics/fueltaxes/, Accessed 2/20/09)
 
On Wednesday, Governor Patrick said he would not support both a toll hike and a gas tax hike: “I will not support a gas tax and a toll increase…one needs to substitute for the other.” (Deval Patrick Remarks to Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce, 2/18/09)
 
But the tolls on the turnpike may increase anyway: “But even as Patrick supports freezing tolls on the turnpike, the authority’s board may be forced to vote on an increase Tuesday. The board has been putting off a vote, but members have said they need to approve some type of increase this month to avoid what could be a costly downgrade by credit rating agencies.” (Boston Globe, 2/20/09)

Tolls at Allston-Brighton and Weston will increase to $1.50, and tolls at the Ted Williams and Sumner tunnels will increase to $5.50: “A two-step toll-Increase plan, discussed at last month’s board meeting, is on the agenda that was delivered to board members yesterday. The plan would impose a 25 cent increase at the Allston-Brighton and Weston booths, bringing the cash toll to $1.50, and a $2 increase at the Ted Williams and Sumner tunnels, bringing it to $5.50. Those rates, effective at the end of March, would be repealed if the Legislature passes a gas tax increase before that deadline. But if the gas tax does not go up by then, the board would raise cash rates even further, to $2 at the booths and to $7 at the tunnels in July.” (Boston Globe, 2/20/09)

In October 2007, Patrick’s Transportation Secretary Bernard Cohen said that the toll hike to $1.25 at Allston-Brighton and Weston and $3.50 at the Ted Williams and Sumner tunnels was in only a short-term solution: “Transportation Secretary Bernard Cohen, who is chairman of the turnpike board, said the toll hike was only a short-term solution in anticipation of Patrick’s proposed reforms, including a merger of the Turnpike Authority with the state Highway Department.”  (AP, 10/4/07)
 
Secretary Cohen called for reform “within the next year”: “’If a comprehensive reform of transportation does not occur within the next year that refinances the Big Dig debt, the bond covenant that we inherited will force us to come back and seek additional toll revenues,’ Cohen said at the meeting.” (AP, 10/4/07)

Senate President Therese Murray (D-Plymouth): “We haven’t received a transportation plan from the governor, but the Legislature will be ready to work on the proposal once it is filed.” (AP, 10/4/07)
 
In December of 2008, legislators asked for Governor Patrick’s transportation plan:
 
State Senator Steve Baddour (D-Methuen): “Isn’t the time now to say to the board that we shouldn’t go forward with a dramatic increase, that this is the time to do the minimum needed to meet the bond requirements,” said Baddour, who also expressed frustration about the pace of getting a reform package to lawmakers. “We’ve been talking about comprehensive reform for a long time but we still haven’t seen the details,” he said. (AP, 12/10/08)
 
Governor Patrick said he did not appreciate criticism of his delay in producing a transportation reform plan: “Patrick told Baddour, clad in a fleece turtleneck vest for the occasion, that he did not appreciate the senator’s repeated criticisms of the administration’s progress on transportation reform, and suggested that Baddour’s preference for privatizing roads and bridges suggested Republican leanings, according to people familiar with the conversation…The governor said Baddour was doing a disservice by frequently pointing out that a comprehensive transportation reform package, which the administration had promised would be delivered long before the current policy debate over tolls and taxes, is overdue, said the sources, who spoke on background because of the sensitivity of the exchange. Baddour’s comeback to Patrick was that he was simply pointing out the obvious.” (SNHS, 12/5/08)
 
Sixteen months after Secretary Cohen called for reform “within the next year”, Governor Deval Patrick files a transportation reform package. (Boston Globe, 2/20/09)

New ad from the American Issues Project on the $800 billion stimulus. If you started spending $1 million per day when Jesus was born, you still wouldn’t have spent as much as the US government just did with the purported stimulus package. And catch the snippy comment from Sen Charles Schumer at the end. You can tell he has a lot of respect for “we the voters” — NOT!

I don’t think anyone is surprised that Beacon Hill’s latest efforts to reform rampant corruption are mere play-acting. Beacon Hill Republicans were hard at work this week, trying to make changes:

State Rep. George N. Peterson Jr., R-Grafton, argued on the House floor that with ethics incidents already known to the public, the finding of the committee that investigates the ethics complaint should be made public. Other findings of the committee that are usually not reported publicly would not have been affected by the rule change and would remain secret.

State Rep. Paul K. Frost, R-Auburn, said despite public demands for more openness, the GOP rules “were shot down” by Democrats because they “did not want to take responsibility for their own actions.”

When push came to shove, the Democrat legislators wouldn’t follow through with Republican recommendations to put real teeth in the rules to prevent phantom voting. The end result was more of the same from the Democrat cronies on Beacon Hill. From the Worcester Telegram:

The Massachusetts House tried to score some credibility points last week by passing rules reforms aimed at “phantom voting.” Unfortunately, the House rejected Republican efforts to put some teeth into their actions.

Under the new rules, members who will be absent must inform the clerk, who is obliged to lock down that member’s voting machine to prevent anyone from casting a vote on that member’s behalf. While phantom voting is by no means a major issue, turning a blind eye to it has been an icon of Beacon Hill arrogance; in moving to curb violations of voting rules, the House showed it has the right instincts. Why, then, did members reject amendments that would require anyone observing a violation to report it to the leadership, or that would make violations grounds for censure and disqualification from subsequent votes on the measure?

Once again the “just trust us” majority on Beacon Hill wants credit for enacting reform while denying the public and members of the minority party an opportunity to hold them to their word.

Opening legislative processes to public scrutiny is the most effective safeguard against ethical abuses, yet the legislative leadership continues to avoid transparency at every turn, conducting most of the public’s business behind closed doors.

On largely party-line votes last week, for example, it said “no” to requiring the Ethics Committee to report on its activities, including dates it met, the number of complaints received, and the number found to have merit or to be without merit. Clearly, the leadership feels no responsibility to answer to the public, even with secondhand reports on the conduct of the public’s business.

While that mind-set prevails, the clandestine back-scratching and log-rolling that invite corruption will not abate.