This week’s “Daily Journal” guest columnist is Jon Sanders, Research Editor and Policy Analyst for the John Locke Foundation.
On top of everything else in North Carolina government this year, last week the General Assembly broke its own rules more than 100 times when it approved the state budget, according to the Civitas Institute.
Well, that’s it. North Carolina needs paradigm breaking if it is to stop the rule breaking in state government. We need outside-the-box thinking applied to the problems of corrupt politicians, institutional hubris, legislative pork, and public officials wallowing in the public trough.
North Carolina needs a legislative linebacker.
Like many a good solution to a government problem, this idea comes from the world of business. Specifically, Reebok, which ran a series of advertisements in 2003 highlighting a fictional corporation’s decision to hire “‘Terrible’ Terry Tate, Office Linebacker,” to enforce office policy and ethics. In the ads, Tate, in full pads and football jersey, is shown delivering NFL-highlight-worthy hits on officemates he sees stealing office supplies, loafing, neglecting cover sheets on TPS reports, making long-distance personal calls, and so forth. His boss is seen boasting that the company’s productivity has increased 46 percent since Tate was hired.
Tate loves his job. “I am an enforcer, man. Don’t nothing go down in this house.” Now that’s an attitude we could use in state government.
Not that every legislator trying funny stuff deserves to be hog-collared. Just the threat of being popped could work to prevent some of the mess. Tate wisely mixes it up.
“Sure I check a few fools. I give ’em the pain!” he says. “But sometimes it’s about intimidation, you know. It’s mind games.” And we see him successfully getting a co-worker to rethink a bad decision just by the mere sight of Tate crouched low, shuffling his feet and exclaiming, “Get ready for the pain! The pain train is coming! Woo-woo!”
Nothing appears to be even the least bit intimidating to our present array of elected leaders: media, watchdog organizations left and right, voters back home, police, feds, nothing. Come to think of it, if policymaking were football, and all of those groups were on defense, our politicians would have legislated them to playing only outside the hash marks while they ran inside handoffs for scores, and then, after the buzzer sounded, they’d keep running plays, spiking the ball in the end zone and declaring it a touchdown.
Right now, we have House members comparing themselves favorably with the Senate by noting the Senate is “more of a dictatorship” (Rep. Bruce Goforth, D-Buncombe), and disgraced former Speaker Jim Black, D-Mecklenburg, serving time in federal prison for corruption (speaking of inside handoffs), saying in his own defense, “You and I know there are all kinds of shenanigans that go on in money and politics.”
With that attitude, shenanigans are sure to continue. We need a “Don’t nothing go down in this House” attitude in Raleigh. If we can’t get someone with that attitude behind the gavel, then how about someone in pads? We have a Sergeant-At-Arms tasked with “enforcing the directions of the President of the Senate or the Speaker of the House of Representatives” and “responsible for the security of the respective legislative body and maintenance of property of that house.” Why not a Legislative Linebacker charged with enforcing ethics, rules governing how the chambers do business, fiscal responsibility, maybe even the promises of proper governance that elected representatives made to their forgotten constituents.
And if he sees someone try to insert budget items outside of the deliberative processes, BOOM! You can’t bring that weak stuff up in this humpty-bumpty!
Try to sneak on to a state commission lobbyists and others with vested interests in the results? POW! You want to play games? Well, when it’s game time, it’s pain time, baby!
Solicit illegal cash payments for favorable legislation? CRUNCH! You take the dough, you hit the flo’! Whoo!
A few times getting the daylights knocked out of them, and maybe legislators will start taking their charge to serve the people of North Carolina seriously. After getting sacked for raiding the “Rainy Day” trust fund for a personal slush fund, or clotheslined trying to pull a fast one in a conference committee, or forearmed through an IHOP bathroom stall, maybe, just maybe, they might pick their woozy selves off the floor with a new determination to play by the rules.
It could well be that, for all the talk about “tackling the problems in North Carolina” we’ve been hearing for years without even a whit of reform, what we need is someone actually tackling the corrupt politicians in North Carolina. Business as usual? Not in my House, baby!