Closing the book on the Tennessee Waltz

Memphis Commercial Appeal ^ | 4/11/8 | Editor

[SmithL]

Corruption probe triggered what may turn out to be substantial change in the political culture -

The last strains of the Tennessee Waltz public corruption investigation played here this week with the sentencing of Michael Hooks Jr. for his role in a bogus invoice scam in the Juvenile Court Clerk's Office.

Hooks, who drew 30 days in federal prison, was the 12th and final Waltz defendant to learn what medicine he would have to take after tasting the toxic brew that state and local politics had become.

The wrap-up of the Tennessee Waltz case should serve as a transition to a new political ideology in Memphis, one where merit and ethics mean something. Surely the political culture is in better shape than it was.

Some signs of improvement almost immediately followed the arrests of state Sen. John Ford and some of the other defendants in the spring of 2005.

The case, which involved FBI agents and informants posing as businessmen and bagmen and offering bribes for help obtaining a state contract, inspired the formation of the state Citizen Advisory Group on Ethics in Government.

The panel held a series of hearings to define the extent of the corruption and help legislators write new state laws governing ethical behavior.

The hearings, in turn, inspired the formation of the state's first ethics commission and a mandate for local governments across Tennessee to write codes of ethics to govern their operations. There also have been efforts, not very successful so far, to open more government records and meetings to the public.

The Waltz also jump-started other public corruption investigations, such as the Memphis case that came to be known as Main Street Sweeper.

What can never be known is the extent to which it succeeded in discouraging ethically challenged politicians and their bagmen from cashing in on the culture of corruption.

Surely there were not a few, however, who wondered if FBI Special Agent in Charge My Harrison's famous warning to corrupt police officers -- "Tap, tap, tap," she told them in 2006, "the next tap on the shoulder may be yours" -- might just as well have been aimed at corrupt pols.

Of course, government ethics will always be in constant need of close monitoring. Laws governing public bodies will always be subject to change, both by legislatures and through public referendums. There will always be politicians too weak to resist the many temptations that accompany power and station and those who run for office just for the freebies and perks.

But local prosecutors and investigators showed a degree of skill and dedication during Tennessee Waltz that should reassure the public that there are guardians doing their best to make public corruption a risky endeavor.

[ccmay]

Tennessee Waltz

[river rat]

30 days!

Wow - that’ll prove that crime DOES pay if you’re stealing “public funds”.

Standards have certainly been lowered......

[Nebr FAL owner]

If you want to show politicians & cops that being dirty is dangerous make the penalty public execution for the betrayal of the public trust.
I live in a town were a cop was literally committing rape while in uniform by demanding sexual favors from street people or he would arrest them for possession of narcotics(planted on the victim) .
He was convicted only because he left DNA like Monica Lewinski had on her blue dress. Hiss sentence is “supervised probation”. Oh and the City Prosecutor appealed the sentence & it was upheld gives you some idea just how crooked the courts in NEBRASKA are don't it.