Slam, slam, slam

Three state newspapers offer editorials today on the vote in the Alabama House of Representatives to overturn the ban on double-dipping in public positions -- and they are unanimous in their disgust for the action.

The Birmingham News, whose own Brett Blackledge won a Pulitzer Prize for uncovering the scandal and relentlessly peeling back its layers upon layers of corruption, calls the legislation an "awful bill," a "stinker," a "shameless attempt" by legislators to "preserve their two-year college job factory." And even though the bill is unlikely to become law because of Gov. Bob Riley's opposition -- a circumstance for which the News says "taxpayers should be very, very glad" -- the News says the House still deserves "a slap" for the 57-36 vote that sent it to the Senate.

Blackledge's investigation revealed plenty of corruption. But, the News says, "one affront is particularly pertinent: At one point, The News discovered that a third of state legislators were tied to the system either through their own jobs and businesses or through their spouses. Alabamians were justifiably furious, and the state's elected school board responded with sensible new policies ...

"The Senate should say no to this travesty," the editorial opines -- and even if it doesn't, it concludes, Riley almost certainly will.

Read the Birmingham News editorial here.

The Tuscaloosa News also weighed in, calling it "improper" that legislators "should pass laws to supersede elected officials on the state school board.

"If we are to hold the state school board accountable for the two-year college system — and we do hold it accountable — then it should be allowed to set the policies necessary to clean up the mess," the News says.

The News also considers the role of uberlobbyist Paul Hubbert and his Alabama Education Association in the mess, saying the AEA's involvement in campaigns and on Goat Hill creates "a closed loop: the AEA helps elect officials, who provide more tax dollars to schools and colleges, who hire people, who run for public office with AEA backing."

Read the complete Tuscaloosa News editorial, "Nobody likes a double-dipper, especially in politics," here.

The Huntsville Times's David Prather chimed in with a warning: "Ever on the lookout for their own benefit, legislators are moving toward kicking an important governmental reform in the teeth," he said, adding that Alabamians can't count on the Senate's usual dysfunction to keep the bill from passing.

"This is the kind of thing that could sneak through unless public outrage prevents it."

Prather writes that the double-dipping ban does not discount that good work can be done by those who hold jobs in the Legislature and elsewhere in the public sector. Good work just can't be done in both places at the same time, he says.

"Indeed, that's all the state school board and (Chancellor Bradley) Byrne are asking: Make a choice of which you want to be, a legislator or a community college employee. Combining those roles, as myriad problems and prosecutions attest, is an invitation to legislators to line their pockets with public money while performing little if any work -- and constantly being faced with the dilemma of voting for their own interest or the state's best interest," Prather says.

He concludes that, since the bill will die without action from the Senate, "at this point, it's in Alabamians best interest for the Senate to do what it increasingly seems to do best: nothing."

Read the full Huntsville Times editorial here.