Woods
“I’m not going to call any names, but they’re all lined up,” Secretary of State Riley Darnell says. “The folks who railed against it the most are right in there with the rest of them.”
As a joke last week, a friend sent a can of lard to Darnell, who was given the Solomonic job of doling out the cash for what lawmakers euphemistically call “community enhancement grants.”
“I’m supposed to divide the babies,” Darnell says ruefully.
After doing without pork for years during leaner economic times, lawmakers tossed $20 million worth of grants into this year’s state budget. In past years, they made lists of recipients, then toured their districts for photo-ops of their smiling selves handing out checks like Santa Claus to peewee baseball teams, senior citizen centers, libraries, volunteer firefighters, churches, charities—you name it.
Some Memphis lawmakers gave state cash to churches, raising suspicions of payoffs to pastors for helping get out the vote on election day. During his reelection campaigns, House Speaker Jimmy Naifeh even threw up billboards thanking himself for various pork projects that he’d brought to his district.
This year, many lawmakers objected to the whole process as slimy, opposing such spending in principle as a wasteful incumbent-protection program. In a compromise, the legislature agreed that the secretary of state would accept applications from charities and other groups for grants and then decide who gets the money. For the $20 million in grants, 4,100 applications poured in asking for $175 million.
As a practical matter, though, nothing about the selection procedure has changed. Lawmakers are still making lists of recipients, and Darnell, who is elected by the legislature, has to hand out the cash according to their wishes if he wants to keep his job.
“What else can I do? I can’t decide who gets it,” Darnell says, acknowledging his status as a creature of the legislature who must ultimately follow their dictates. “I’d have one $20 million spending spree and then you wouldn’t see me again.”
As was the past practice, each House member has dibs on $100,000 worth of pork and each senator owns $300,000.
Among the anti-pork lawmakers who now are lining up for their districts’ fill of the money are Sen. Jack Johnson, a Republican from Brentwood, and Reps. Susan Lynn, a Republican from Lebanon, and Jimmy Matlock, a Republican from Lenoir City.
“I was opposed to it, but if every other Senate district is going to get $300,000, then it’s only fair that my district gets it too,” Johnson says. “I wish I didn’t have to do it. I wish I wasn’t put in this situation.”
Johnson turned in his list of recipients to Darnell. Lynn and Matlock are letting Darnell choose, but they’ve let him know they expect their fair share of the money. “You could call it hypocritical,” Matlock says. “I’m still against pork barrel spending, but I’m saying, ‘If you’re going to give it out, don’t penalize my district.’ ”
In a quick survey, the Scene found two lawmakers who have remained pure in spirit against pork and refused to participate in any way in the cash distribution: Reps. Beth Harwell, a Nashville Republican, and Brian Kelsey, a Germantown Republican. Kelsey hates pork spending so much that, when he was asked to submit a list of projects for funding during this year’s session, he turned in an envelope stuffed with bacon.
“I have not asked for any projects, and I’ve not communicated with the secretary of state at all about this,” Kelsey says. “I think it’s a shame that Riley Darnell is just going to rubber-stamp legislators’ desires. That’s exactly what we were trying to prevent. Thankfully, my constituents appreciate principled leadership.”
Harwell says, “I don’t think this is a proper way to budget. We shouldn’t spend money on pork barrel projects that favor one person with political connections over someone without connections. We should manage state government based on the merits of programs.”
Darnell has awarded $2 million in grants so far. “It’s the Lord’s work,” he says.
Briley plays the victim
When
last we heard from state Rep. Rob Briley, he had checked himself out of
an alcohol and drug treatment center, rented a red Mustang and ridden
off to Tunica, Miss., to hit the casinos. Probably not what rehab
counselors would have recommended for the disgraced Nashville Democrat,
who already faced DUI and other charges related to a 100-mph police
chase on Sept. 8 in Wilson County.
Last week, Briley popped up at Legislative Plaza to give a couple of media interviews in which he insisted he wouldn’t resign and tried to play the victim, claiming he was driven to drink by previously repressed memories of unspecified abuse as a child.
“Let’s say that you have a film in your mind of an event that occurred in the past,” Briley said. “With regard to me, that film had been chopped into little, tiny pieces and stuffed down inside my brain somewhere. About four years ago, little parts of that film started popping up in my mind, so I could see just the small glimpses. And about a year-and-a-half ago, my mind put the film together as one long thread and I was able to see the whole event from beginning to end that I had never seen before.”
Maybe an appearance on Oprah is next for Briley, who said he was never drunk at the legislature and offered these words to live by: “I may have come in smelling like alcohol at times but was never intoxicated while I was here or I never consumed alcohol here.” His interview with the City Paper also included this hard-hitting exchange:
City Paper: Best of luck. I know a lot of people have been praying for you.
Briley: ...I’ve lived through my worst nightmare over the past four years. Today, by talking to you, I’m living through it again.
Briley ducked a question about whether he’d engaged in “some marital infidelity,” saying “there are certain things that are private,” and the City Paper didn’t press him on the matter. Numerous sources have told the Scene that Briley was having an affair with lobbyist Mary Littleton (“Affairs of State,” Oct. 11). To say nothing of the moral impropriety of the romance, the relationship was professionally questionable because Littleton lobbied for the state trial lawyers association and Briley, as chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, controlled legislation important to her employer.
But this newspaper wasn’t the first to disclose infidelity. In divorce papers, Briley’s wife, Pier, said her husband “has committed adultery, has admitted such, thereby destroying the core of this marriage.” In an agreement filed with the court only three days before Briley went on his Wilson County rampage, he let his wife sell their home and keep all the proceeds and move with their two children to Vermont. Sources say Briley agreed to the deal to keep his wife from putting potentially embarrassing information about his activities into the court record.
Littleton,
meanwhile, left her position with the trial lawyers association last
week. An email from the association to its members about the group’s
Oct. 19 board meeting said: “After a long discussion, Mary Littleton
was given until 5:00 p.m. on Monday, October 23rd to resign. She did
not resign and was therefore terminated at that time. We wish her the
best in her future endeavors.”
|
---------------------------Advertisement---------------------------
|
|
---------------------------Advertisement---------------------------
|