Yesterday Republican members of the State Affairs Committee screeched loudly about a bill that would force them to disclose the government contracts that they and their family members have.
And politicians wonder why they are so distrusted.
Representative Giovanni Capriglione won the confidence of his district by championing government transparency. The bill under review was HB 524, a bill seeking to require disclosure of contracts elected officials and their families enjoy with government entities.
The members couldn’t muster much substance against Rep. Capriglione’s bill, but that didn’t stop them from trying their best to discredit it with smoke and mirrors.
Rep. Patricia Harless complained incessantly about having to disclose her brother’s contracts, contracts she said she “may have had a minority interest in at some point”. Rep. Capriglione finally said he would consider taking siblings out of the reporting requirement, which immediately quieted her, but she would come back later.
Rep. Dan Huberty used any argument he could think of, deploying them in a scattershot, rapid-fire fashion.
First, Huberty complained that it was not fair for your competitors to know how much business you have with the government, but he didn’t explain why.
Then, Huberty tried to bluster away the difference between government officials making money on government contracts, and a government official making money in the free market.
Next, Huberty tried to minimize the transparency upgrade this bill would accomplish, since these contracts are technically available already, but hard for average people to get to. This bill would streamline access, but Huberty made it clear he didn’t want that to happen.
Huberty did several times emphasize that hypothetical contracts in his examples were obtained according to proper bidding guidelines. Former state Representative Vicki Truitt got her government contracts outside the normal bidding process.
Rep. Harvey Hilderbran did a Perry Mason impersonation to change the subject from legislators collecting government contracts to Capriglione’s reporting of income he earned privately. Hilderbran joined Huberty in pretending not to understand that officials making money with taxpayer-funded contracts are deserving of more public scrutiny than money made in the free market.
Hilderbran’s cross-examination then turned into a lecture about a campaign website that Capriglione controls. Capriglione could have said, “I’ll stop campaigning when she does,” but was much more gracious than that.
Hilderbran’s big finish was to say that this transparency bill from Rep. Capriglione, who was elected on transparency, looks motivated by vendetta.
After earlier backing Capriglione off of including siblings in reporting requirements, Rep. Harless came back to ask him to remove spouses. Harless talked about her husband government contracts before she ran for office, a defense she used for her brother’s businesses too.
She clearly seems to think having government business before you are elected to office somehow eliminates the possibility that you have abused government contracts after empowered. It doesn’t. In neither her husband nor her brothers case did Harless disclose how her new status has changed the amount of government business her family businesses are getiing.
This concluded the demonstration on how good can be twisted into evil in mere minutes when a committee full of politicians with microphones and seniority feel threatened.
Lawmakers have long used spouses as laundering mechanisms. In the past lawmakers would use campaign funds to rent houses from their spouse. Truitt engaged in the practice herself.
Interestingly it was defensive comments from a lawmaker that unearthed the practice in 2006.
We’ll be back tomorrow to further unpack comments made during this hearing and their context.
–Hearing video – Capriglioni bill discussion starts at approximately 1:59