Editorials

There was a problem. Two problems, really.

First, there were state legislators and state employees who were also holding down other state jobs — "double dipping." In some high-profile cases, they were doing little or nothing to earn that second paycheck.

The second, and perhaps the greatest, problem was that state legislators who held down other state jobs and drew two state paychecks could be (and often were) paid lobbyists for the agency for which they worked. They pushed bills and appropriations for those agencies and voted on budgets that put money in their own pockets.

Thus, it should seem easy to prohibit legislators from holding down state jobs from which they and the agency might receive some benefit — financial or otherwise. Other states do it.

Why can't Alabama?

A step in that direction was made by the State Board of Education when it forbid its employees from double dipping. It was the right move because it is within that agency that the most outrageous examples of double dipping have occurred.

However, in the course of this debate about public officials' activities someone raised a question about Republican Secretary of State Beth Chapman. She runs a consulting firm that was paid nearly $50,000 by a charity that received a state grant to conduct its activities.

Was this double-dipping? Should it be outlawed?

Democrats who oppose efforts to keep legislators from holding other state jobs had a field day, telling Republicans that Chapman was a "double-dipper" as well. But is she?

It's not a cut-and-dried example. Chapman is not double dipping in the way many legislators are. Moreover, there is no evi-dence that Chapman profited directly from the state grant.

Yet, there is an old saying, "Caesar's wife must be above suspicion." In other words, those close to power must be more blameless than everyone else.

Chapman may not have done anything wrong, but the hint of impropriety around the matter suggests that she should disassociate herself and her company from anything that receives state money. That much is obvious.

What is demanded of legislators should be demanded of other state employees. There is nothing wrong with public officials holding other jobs, as long as they fall outside of the realm of the state and its powers. State employees should get only one check from the state — directly or indirectly.

Is that too difficult to write into law?