I’ve become increasingly disenchanted with my state representative, Curry Todd (R - Collierville). In 2006, Rep. Todd ran unopposed, and I voted for him. But since that time, however, he has charged full speed in the wrong direction; he has raised taxes, limited our freedoms, inflated government spending and failed to advance our Second Amendment rights. Now he wants to peel away the ethics laws passed just two years ago, in the wake of Operation Tenn. Waltz.

More on all these issues below, but first let’s discuss his proposed changes to the ethics law.

Bloggers who have already written about this issue include Ben Cunningham (who also posted this video), Adam Groves and Jim Grinstead.

The first hints that some legislators wanted to weaken the new ethics law came in October, when a confused Rep. Todd was quoted saying, “No one knows what they can do.”

Funny that, how our representatives in Nashville could vote to pass a bill they didn’t understand in the first place.

But comprehension doesn’t appear to be the real issue. Our lawmakers seem all-too aware of just how much they can get, and from whom.

As the Commercial Appeal reports in an editorial today, “the state’s ethics law generally prevents lobbyists from buying meals for lawmakers…, limits groups or individuals who employ lobbyists from spending more than $50 per legislator per meal…, and doesn’t apply to individual constituents or groups that don’t employ lobbyists.”

“If the law really needs to be clarified, that’s fine. But clarity shouldn’t come at the expense of perpetuating the perception that Tennessee state government is for sale.”

It’s not clarity that Rep. Todd is seeking, but rather $75 meals, totaling up to $1,000 per lobbyist, per year.

So if there are at least 600-700 lobbying clients in Tennessee, a busy legislator could receive over half a million dollars in food and beverages each year.

The Tennessean reports that, “many legislators say the ban is too restrictive, cutting them off from constituents and one another,” and some are “annoyed by the notion that [they] could be bought for a biscuit.”

All this prompts a number of questions:

• Are lobbyists now considered “constituents” by our legislators?
• Are our legislators unable to meet with constituents without receiving free food?
• What are our legislators doing with their per diem money?
• Do biscuits cost $75 in Nashville these days?
• If $75 is the proper limit, does that imply their votes can be bought for $76?

Also, if our lawmakers are not paying for their own meals, how exactly would they be collecting all the receipts, in order to turn them into the Ethics Commission?

What happens if the lobbyists’ paperwork doesn’t match the legislators’ paperwork? How many more bureaucrats will need to be hired in order to tabulate the numbers and investigate any discrepancies?

But perhaps the most important question is this: if Curry Todd is simply a representative serving his constituents, in a democracy where the voters in his district hold the power, and drawing his salary from their tax dollars, why should he be the one getting the free lunches?

As far as the other issues go, I’ve written about some of this before, but it bears repeating:

INCUMBENT PROTECTION SCHEME

First, Rep. Todd supported a deal that allowed individual legislators to hand out wads of cash (up to $300,000) to cronies in their district, a plan the Commercial Appeal called an “incumbent protection scheme.” When one of his fellow representatives objected, Rep. Todd accused him of “grandstanding” and said he would “be more than happy to take” his allotment as well (House sizzling over ‘pork’ - CA, May 18, 2007).

In total, the plan would cost taxpayers nearly $20 million.

When word of this scheme made it back to angry constituents, the giveaways were sold as “Community Enhancement Grants,” a phony grant process was formulated allowing state agencies to submit their own requests for cash, and the Secretary of State was brought in to give the politicians plausible deniability. But it was clear that the fundamentals of the scheme had not been altered, and as the Tennessean reported, “some grant applicants did not know that getting a legislator to support their application would give them priority.”

Of course, the pork plan was buoyed by the figment of a budget surplus. At that time, the state of Tennessee was “flush with cash,” as Rep. Todd put it.

“We had a problem, and the problem was we didn’t know where to spend — they didn’t know where to spend the money. Everybody wanted a piece of the pie.”

But now that Governor Bredesen has estimated a budget deficit of $240 million in the current year, the pork scheme looks like an even worse boondoggle.

HIGHER TAXES AND UNCONSTITUTIONAL SPENDING

Rep. Todd said “maybe that’s alright” that we have “one of the highest sales taxes in the nation,” and he supported the recent increase in taxes on cigarettes.

I suppose it only follows that Rep. Todd would support high tax rates and tax increases, since he is in favor of political givaways like the one described above, and since he voted in favor of the state budget, “a budget that spent $723 million more than the state constitution’s spending growth limitation allows,” according to the Tennessee Republican Party; “The limit, called the ‘Copeland Cap,’ was designed to keep government from growing faster than average incomes of the people of Tennessee who pay the bills.”

Rep. Todd also recently put a stop to an inquiry into the questionable financing of renovations to the Governor’s mansion and the more than $12 million tax dollars pouring into the project.

LIMITING OUR FREEDOMS

In addition to supporting the cigarette tax increase, which sent citizens across the state border to make their purchases (thus hurting state revenue and potentially driving businesses and jobs out of the state), Rep. Todd voted for the smoking ban — a general affront to our freedom that also hurt jobs and small business owners.

But that isn’t enough for Rep. Todd, who has decided he also needs to help us make our entertainment choices. Rep. Todd is reportedly drafting a bill that would regulate the buying and selling of event tickets, banning certain internet sales and limiting the number of tickets you can buy to shows, concerts and other entertainment.

According to the Germantown News, his bill would put a “four-ticket limit on tickets purchased through a ticket outlet.” That means a family of five (like my brother’s family is soon to be) would not be able to sit together at events, nor would a group of five or more relatives, friends or co-workers.

The legislation would also place “significant restrictions” on those who profit from reselling tickets to entertainment events. Thus, it would attempt to regulate activity on online ticket swapping websites such as Ebay or StubHub.

Under such legislation, if you were to purchase tickets and find out later that you would be unable to attend the event, you might be prevented from reselling the tickets at their market value.

FAILURE TO ADVANCE 2ND AMENDMENT RIGHTS

Just to emphasize what I wrote on this before, Rep. Todd sponsored H 411, which allows permit holders to take their firearms into restaurants that serve alcoholic beverages. But when he was “approached by another legislator about a push to allow handguns on college campuses,” he said, “I don’t know if this is the proper time to do that,” following the Virginia Tech shootings.

If it’s not a proper time to affirm the right of students to defend themselves in the aftermath of a psychopath’s rampage (who by the way murdered his victims in a “gun free zone”), when is there a proper time?