Politcal craziness is following me
After witnessing the most momentous moment in recent Canadian politics last week, I drove to Nashville just in time to catch what looks like the biggest Tennessee political scandal in years.
As the current session of the Tennessee state legislature drew to a close this morning, all hell broke loose as FBI agents stormed Capitol Hill in Nashville to arrest four members of the state legislature. Three state senators (all Democrats), one state representative (a Republican), a former state senator, and two other people were arrested as a result of a two-year federal sting operation codenamed Operation Tennessee Waltz.
The FBI set up a front company Love and E-Cycle Management, Inc., headquartered in Georgia in order to probe for corruption in the Tennessee state legislature, and it appears they found some. Late last night, State Rep. Chris Newton (R-Cleveland) withdrew House Bill 57, which if passed would have sold surplus state computer equipment to E-Cycle so that they could resell it for profit. Newton was charged with accepting a bribe from E-Cycle in order to craft legislation in their favor.
Over in the state senate, similar charges were filed against Ward Crutchfield (D-Chattanooga) and Kathryn Bowers (D-Memphis), only they were accused of taking larger sums.
Then there’s Senator John Ford (D-Memphis). In addition to the charge of accepting $55,000 ($5,000 for each time he had to something legislative on behalf of E-Cycle), he was charged with three counts of intimidating a witness in a federal investigation. There is apparently tape of him telling an undercover FBI agent that he would shoot anyone who testified against him. However, Ford does seem to have an ability to not get convicted of the charges against him. While he has been in a state senator, he has been charged with shooting at a truck driver on the interstate driving back to Memphis after a session, shooting at people near his Memphis home, using state funds to deliver packages to his relatives (which he fervently insisted he had a right to do) and using campaign funds to pay for his daughter’s wedding reception. He also currently under ethics investigations regarding his receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars in consulting fees from companies that do business with TennCare, the state Medicaid administrator, despite the fact that he is on three different legislative committees that oversee TennCare.
The Ford family is well known in Memphis politics. Ford’s nephew, Harold Ford, Jr., despite having just turned 35 is in his fifth term in the House of Representatives in the seat previously held by his father. Only yesterday did Harold Ford announce his intensions to run for the US Senate in 2006. At according to my father, the Ford family’s political power comes from their monopoly of African-American funeral homes in the Memphis area.
Several other lawmakers reported being contacted by E-Cycle. Another of the bill’s co-sponsors Rep. Ulysses Jones (D-Memphis) was not indicted, but did accept campaign donations from E-Cycle. As a side note, while I am glad this corruption was disclosed, something seems really wrong to me that federal dollars were actually given as campaign donations in state legislature races. I don’t know how close Rep. Jones’s last race was, but if I were his opponent and knew that he got campaign donations from the FBI, I would be quite angry.
As the current session of the Tennessee state legislature drew to a close this morning, all hell broke loose as FBI agents stormed Capitol Hill in Nashville to arrest four members of the state legislature. Three state senators (all Democrats), one state representative (a Republican), a former state senator, and two other people were arrested as a result of a two-year federal sting operation codenamed Operation Tennessee Waltz.
The FBI set up a front company Love and E-Cycle Management, Inc., headquartered in Georgia in order to probe for corruption in the Tennessee state legislature, and it appears they found some. Late last night, State Rep. Chris Newton (R-Cleveland) withdrew House Bill 57, which if passed would have sold surplus state computer equipment to E-Cycle so that they could resell it for profit. Newton was charged with accepting a bribe from E-Cycle in order to craft legislation in their favor.
Over in the state senate, similar charges were filed against Ward Crutchfield (D-Chattanooga) and Kathryn Bowers (D-Memphis), only they were accused of taking larger sums.
Then there’s Senator John Ford (D-Memphis). In addition to the charge of accepting $55,000 ($5,000 for each time he had to something legislative on behalf of E-Cycle), he was charged with three counts of intimidating a witness in a federal investigation. There is apparently tape of him telling an undercover FBI agent that he would shoot anyone who testified against him. However, Ford does seem to have an ability to not get convicted of the charges against him. While he has been in a state senator, he has been charged with shooting at a truck driver on the interstate driving back to Memphis after a session, shooting at people near his Memphis home, using state funds to deliver packages to his relatives (which he fervently insisted he had a right to do) and using campaign funds to pay for his daughter’s wedding reception. He also currently under ethics investigations regarding his receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars in consulting fees from companies that do business with TennCare, the state Medicaid administrator, despite the fact that he is on three different legislative committees that oversee TennCare.
The Ford family is well known in Memphis politics. Ford’s nephew, Harold Ford, Jr., despite having just turned 35 is in his fifth term in the House of Representatives in the seat previously held by his father. Only yesterday did Harold Ford announce his intensions to run for the US Senate in 2006. At according to my father, the Ford family’s political power comes from their monopoly of African-American funeral homes in the Memphis area.
Several other lawmakers reported being contacted by E-Cycle. Another of the bill’s co-sponsors Rep. Ulysses Jones (D-Memphis) was not indicted, but did accept campaign donations from E-Cycle. As a side note, while I am glad this corruption was disclosed, something seems really wrong to me that federal dollars were actually given as campaign donations in state legislature races. I don’t know how close Rep. Jones’s last race was, but if I were his opponent and knew that he got campaign donations from the FBI, I would be quite angry.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home