GOP gubernatorial hopeful Byrne talks ethics reform, budget woes

Bradley Byrne is embarrassed by state government, but motivated to change it.

Why? The culture of corruption that has permeated state government in Alabama continues to give the state a bad name. And Byrne, a Republican gubernatorial hopeful, plans to fix it — quickly.

“Sure it motivates me. You can’t do what I did for the last two years in cleaning up the most corrupt part of state government and not have it affect you,” Byrne, the former chancellor of Alabama’s two-year college system who spent much of that tenure working toward cleaning corruption there, told the Opelika-Auburn News Tuesday.

“Having seen some of these things, it’s very embarrassing and it detracts from our ability to make state government efficient and effective. And it sends a terrible message around the country at a time when we’re trying to sell our state as a good, clean place to bring your business.”

Byrne is calling for a number of ethics laws to be passed in special session “immediately” after his inauguration, if elected.

“I think we can pass the most sweeping set of ethics reform bills this state has ever seen,” he said.

The proposals include: banning double dipping throughout state government; banning pass through pork and make it a felony; banning the practice of PAC-to-PAC transfers; enforcing a “hard and low limit” on what lobbyists can spend on legislators; making all lobbyists register; making family members of governor and executive branch disclose any business that involves a state government entity; giving the state ethics commission subpeona power; making lawmakers go through annual ethics training; and making state officials go through criminal background checks.

Byrne, one of seven Republican hopefuls for governor, announced the 17 Lee County residents to his “Byrne for Alabama Leadership Team.” They are Nancy Barron, Butch Brock, Dan Broughton, Dr. H.S. Bruce, Smiths Station Mayor LaFaye Dellinger, Opelika Mayor Gary Fuller, Chandler Harris, Dr. Rod Herring, Becky Lewis, Charles Pick, Randy Price, Henry Stern, Jacob Watkins, Tracie West, Dr. Jim Witte and Caroline Wren. Lee County Revenue Commissioner Oline Price is the team’s chair person.

Though Byrne must clear hurdles in next June’s primary,  and then next November’s general election, his first days directly after the election are already planned.

“The day after general election, we’ll get to work on the budgets,” he said, calling out education and Medicaid.

Byrne plans to hit the ground running, and if what some predict are true, he’ll need a big head start.

“The budgets in 2011 will be the worst budgets the state of Alabama has faced since the Great Depression,” he said. “Anybody that’s watching this train wreck understands this is an unprecedented problem for this generation. If we get it wrong, it can wreck our state just like it’s wrecking California. On the other hand, if we get it right, it could single Alabama out as a state that figured it out and had its act together to deal with it, and therefore, is a state that you would be attracted to bring your business and industry to. It’s the ultimate high-stakes game for this state.

“You’ve got to have someone in this position who truly understands how to manage state government, how to put together budgets and run budgets. Someone who’s never done any of that before and never done certain parts of that won’t have the luxury of time to learn. You can’t learn on the job and do this right. You’ve got to know how to do it the day you walk in the door.”

But aside from balancing an already tenuous state budget and instituting ethics reform, Byrne discussed another dilemma: Medicaid. When federal stimulus funds expire in 2011, so will the extra funding for Medicaid, and Byrne conservatively said this issue could cost the state $400 million more annually than it is currently spending.

“This is the single-biggest fiscal problem facing the state of Alabama,” he said. “Even a bigger fiscal problem than what we’ve talked about with the schools, and it’s being masked because we’ve got this federal stimulus money that’s propping up Medicaid and the money is gone in 2011. It’s just gone.

“This could have a profound impact on state government if we don’t handle it right. It disturbs me that we’ve gotten this far in the medical debate and no one’s talking about it. I’ve yet to find someone that has an answer.

“There are lots of things that we are going to have to manage as states to manage this fiscal crisis for Medicaid, but the federal government is going to have to give us a lot of flexibility to do it – otherwise Medicaid programs across this country are going to crash and that’s just not acceptable. I think it’s 70 percent of the nursing home beds in Alabama are Medicaid-paid. Now think about that: How many elderly people at the end stages of life would be affected if we don’t manage this Medicaid problem right? How many poor mothers that are pregnant wouldn’t get prenatal care? And what does that do to their babies and the cost of those babies and their health problems because they didn’t get prenatal care down the road?

“We’ve got to end this craziness. We’ve got to allow us to have our own tort reform within Medicaid.”