Ten things that are plucking my last nerve

On Facebook, I usually call this "Things I Hate." But I'll try to confine myself to political topics here and we'll just say these are things that are on my nerves, as the 2011 campaign rushes to a close and the 2012 presidential election kicks into gear.

1. The assertion, generally by Republicans, that a requirement to bring photo ID to the polls has something to do with curbing "voter fraud."  One candidate even said in debate the other night that voter fraud was on the rise in Virginia. When asked to provide an example he, of course, could not. Look, you don't steal an election where the votes are cast, you steal it where the votes are counted. Anybody who gave this issue about ten seconds of thought would realize you can't fix an election by voting fake voters. It's too cumbersome, requires too many people to be in on the scheme. It's a silly idea. We've had three presidential elections in this country that might have been stolen -- 1880, 1960 and 2000. If they were, they were all stolen after the polls closed. So, when Republicans get serious about voting machines with computer software that can't be easily hacked and paper trails to allow an accurate recount, I'll believe they care about "voter fraud." Until then, they're just trying to suppress the vote.

2. Stupid campaign charges. I've got to call out Sen. John Miller's campaign on this one. Miller (D-1st), who's been accused of having a conflict of interest for taking a job with a local aviation company after voting for a bill that gave them a tax break, accused his Republican opponent Mickey Chohany of having a bigger conflict. The issue? That Chohany twice voted for street improvements on the street where his restaurant is located. Look, I've been in that business, I understand "Deny, deny and make counter accusations," but make them sensible. The street improvements were included in packages of citywide street projects that were recommended by the city administration, not Chohany. It's like saying a City Council member has a conflict because he votes to repave every street in the city, including the one he lives one. For the record, the allegation against Miller is more serious. I don't think it rises to the Phil Hamilton level of a violation of the conflict of interest laws that needs to be prosecuted. There's no evidence of quid pro quo. At the same time, it looks bad and -- if in my opinion -- he shouldn't have done it.

3. Republican presidential debates. The only person more exhausted than I am by the multitude of debates is apparently Rick Perry. I might join him in his resolve to ignore some of them. Of course that won't have the consequences for me that it will for him. If you can't win a debate against Rick Santorum and Michele Bachmann, you aren't going to stand much of a chance against Barack Obama.

4. The way some people who cheered on the Tea Party rallies last year, mock the Occupy Wall Street rallies this year. And, I suppose, vice versa. Before the Tea Party got co-opted by the Republican Party, it expressed a lot of the same populist outrage that Occupy Wall Street does. In my view, this is a country long in need of a little healthy populist outrage. The nightmare of the powers-that-be is that the Occupy Wall Street folks and the Tea Partiers might realize that they're mad at some of the same people. That graphic going around the Internet isn't a total joke; there is an intersection of interest between the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street around the too chummy relationship between government and business.

5. Michele Bachmann. Voice like a razor blade, crazy eyes and crazier ideas. Come back, Sarah Palin, all is forgiven.

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The fault, Horatio, lies not in our politicians but in our selves

The Center of Public Integrity doesn’t think Virginia’s legislators have much.

A report released last week gives Virginia an “F” on the transparency of legislators’ financial disclosure statements and ranks Virginia 31st among the 50 states. Among the center’s complaints are that legislators fail to identify clients that they represent in court and before state agencies.

Understand that the center’s complaint isn’t that lawmakers are violating the law, but that the law itself is defective.

The fault for that lies, not with the General Assembly, but with Virginia’s voters.

Having worked as a legislative staffer and as part of state party staff, I can tell you that good government regulations that would fix those problems are disdained both by our elected representatives – of both parties – and their staffs.

Staff doesn’t want to stop the flow of campaign contribution gravy that pays their salaries and members don’t want to turn off the spigot of legalized bribes that insures they’ll have an easier time being re-elected. And they don’t feel they have to.

Because you don’t care.

“That doesn’t move one vote,” a senior staffer once told me of a proposal to limit campaign contributions to General Assembly and statewide candidates. The same is true of other “good government” initiatives like non-partisan redistricting. You, the voters, just don’t care about that.

And he’s right. The lack of any effective limits on campaign contributions hasn’t imperiled any incumbent’s time in office. Quite the opposite.

In case you don’t know, Virginia is one of the few states with no limits on campaign contributions. If you, or more likely Dominion Resources, wanted to give a candidate for governor a million dollars, that’s perfectly okay under Virginia law. As long as he reports the contribution.

Virginia politicians have gone for the “full disclosure” route rather than limit campaign contributions under the logic that “the public will decide” if a contribution was improper.

Except that you the public are not going to take up the time to look up who gave how much money to whom. And, if you do find out, usually as the result of an opponent’s negative advertising or a newspaper story, you don’t care.

We allow legislators to represent clients before state boards and agencies that they appoint and to practice law in front of judges that they elect, because you don’t care. It doesn’t affect your vote, so the politicians have no reason to change a system that benefits them.

That’s why Sen. Tommy Norment (R-3rd) didn’t think it was any big deal when he was appointed commissioner of accounts for Williamsburg and James City County. He didn’t even send out a press release. Because other legislators had held the same position before, some currently hold it and, with the exception of two cases, the voters haven’t cared.

He’s playing by the rules. The rules say there’s nothing wrong with him holding that position, to which he was appointed by a judge he voted to put on the bench.

When I wrote about that story last year we got a few letters and Last Word comments contending it was a conflict of interest. It’s not.

Virginia’s conflict of interest statute is so loosely written that, to be in violation, a member of the General Assembly would basically have to put in, and vote for, a bill that required the state treasurer to cut him a check. And, if the law specified that everybody in the state who looked like the legislator, or was the same height, or was in the same business also got the check, even that might pass muster.

Because you don’t care.

Richmond lobbyists aren’t shadowy figures who do their deals in secret. They wear their influence on their sleeves.

Sometimes, it’s rather comical. At about 4 p.m. on any day the General Assembly is in session you can see legislators in the halls searching for their “lobbyist of the day,” who’ll pick up the check for dinner. Sometimes lobbyists pick up checks for large groups of up to 100 that include legislators, their staff and sometimes even the press.

“If you can’t drink their whiskey and eat their steak and then vote against them the next day, you don’t belong here,” a veteran legislator once told me.

Unfortunately, the record shows that they more often vote for the folks with the whiskey and steaks.

That’s why Virginia is a bad state for underdogs. If you’re a tenant, you’ve got basically no rights that can be enforced in court against your landlord. If you’re a consumer, you’re left at the mercy of predatory businesses, like payday lenders. If you’re a lobbyist for Common Cause or the League of Women Voters pushing some “good government” reform, you won’t get the hearing that a big corporation will because you can’t afford to pick up dinner checks.

During roll call votes in the House of Delegates, you’ll often hear joking exhortations to “lean to the green.” It’s more than a joke. The side with the most “green” wins more often than not.

Lobbyist and legislators, of course, will tell you that the meals and the gifts and the campaign cash only buys “access” That’s not true. They buy bills and votes. Look up you favorite legislator on the Virginia Public Access Project’s website. See who their largest contributors are and then check how many bills they sponsor that benefit that donor and how many votes they cast for and against that donor’s interests.

It’s legalized bribery. But there’s nothing wrong with it, because that’s the system that’s in place.

Because you don’t care.

Jeff Shapiro of the Richmond Times-Dispatch wrote his Sunday column about a new member of the FBI’s public corruption squad who’s looking around the General Assembly to get the lay of the land.

The FBI in Richmond has caught a couple of members of the Richmond City Council with their hands in the cookie jar over the past several years and successfully prosecuted them for bribery. They got caught with the money in their hands, more or less.

Members of the General Assembly are smarter than that.

I predict that FBI agent will see a lot of corruption at the Capitol. But very little of it will be against the law.

Because you don’t care.