The Tennessee Waltz sting
Posted by Moonage on 26 May 2005 | Tagged as: National Politics
There’s some interesting events occurring in Tennessee right now:
The Nashville City Paper has just posted a report the same names I had: State Sen. Ward Crutchfield, D-Chattanooga, and state Rep. Chris Newton, R-Cleveland. The City Paper says the two were arrested by the FBI near the state Capitol this morning and led away in handcuffs.
UPDATE 9:44 a.m. : FOUR legislators have been arrested. WKRN blogger Brittney Gilbert reports that the FBI also nabbed state Sen. John Ford, D-Memphis, and state Sen. Kathryn Bowers, D-Memphis.
They have been charged with violations of the Hobbs Act. Better known as taking bribes to sponsor legislation.
This could get real interesting. Reminds me a lot of Boptrot in Kentucky many years ago.
2 Comments »
on 26 May 2005 at 4:41 pm 1.Bryan Kerwick
said …
Very much like Boptrot.
Nice to see we have bi-partisan criminals running the business of Tennessee. This will most likely not make the mainstream press unless it says something like Chris Newton R-Cleveland and three other fellow legislaters were arrested for taking bribes…
And the reason we have these jackasses is because we have yet to figure a way to attract the best and brightest for these positions. Salary alone is not going to work. We need a better plan.
on 26 May 2005 at 9:37 pm 2.Moonage
said …
That has been
a point I have argued for a long time. I did a survey on what federal
representatives make, particularly Congressmen, in comparison to what people
make in the private sector. On a state level it’s profoundly worse.
It’s one thing to expect people to serve for the benefit of their state, or
government, it’s another entirely to expect them to sacrifice the financial
well-being of their family. Sure, there’s plenty that have financial resources
to dedicate themselves to public service, but, there’s a lot more out there that
would do it if they could afford to. We’re not seeing those people.
The BOPTROT sting nailed a lot of people, Tennessee Waltz will probably take
down more. In the case of BOPTROT, it was something like a mere $400 or so
that took down the minority party leader. $400 shouldn’t mean anything to
these people. I won’t do much of anything for $400, much less risk my
reputation. I don’t know all the details of Tennessee Waltz yet, but it
wouldn’t surprise me if the payoff was similar. We’ve got to figure some
way to remove the enticement of petty payoffs affecting government policy.
My solution is not politically correct tho.