Editorials

Almost as long as “accountability” has been an ethical buzz word up on Goat Hill, politicians and pundits, conservatives and those less-so, have called for the Legislature to put an end to the practice of PAC-to-PAC transfers. That's the campaign money-laundering scheme where contributions are shifted from one political action committee to another and sometimes to another and another until it is impossible to tell which of the state's many “special interests” is supporting which of the candidates.

Gov. Bob Riley has called for an end to it.

Legislators from both parties have bemoaned the practice.

Lobbyists and the groups they represent say doing it is more trouble than the results are worth.

Bills to outlaw it have passed the House, usually with great fanfare.

But that is as far as things have gotten.

Once in the Senate, the legislation has been assigned to committee and there it has died.

Why?

No one wants to come forth with a reason, though a number of lobbyists note that they do not initiate the transfers. The money shifting is generally done at the request of a candidate who does not want his opponent or his constituents to know who is funding his campaign.

Which raises the question: Were these stealth candidates elected and are they the ones blocking reform?

When you have an issue that our home-grown conservative think-tank, the Alabama Policy Institute, Dr. Paul Hubbert and the Alabama Education Association agree on and want resolved in the same way, you would think the Legislature would be falling all over itself to get the bill passed.

So it will be interesting to see who lines up against putting an end to the practice. And it will be interesting to hear their answer when folks back home ask them what they are trying to hide.