You don't understand life

unless you understand wrestling. I bring this up because

a news report I first saw in last Saturday's AJC informed

us that the State Ethics Commission had just dismissed

two complaints related to last fall's SPLOST vote. These

were complaints against the Fayette County Board of

Realtors and the committee formed to promote the SPLOST

vote.

When I saw this decision,

and reflected on other past decisions of the State Ethics

Commission relating to SPLOST, I immediately thought of

wrestling referees. In wrestling (for those of you who

don't know), you have good guys and bad guys. Quite

often, they are paired, two against two, in tag team

matches. One team member stays in the corner while his

partner wrestles, and they switch with their partner

whenever they can tag. That's the theory. In practice,

the two bad guys arrange for the referee to be

distracted, while one or both of them beat up on one of

the good guys. (That's what it looks like anyway.)

Oftentimes, the referee will take it upon himself to give

a stern and lengthy lecture to one of the good guys, with

his back turned to the ring, while the two bad guys

mercilessly beat up his hapless partner in full view of

the crowd.

I don't mean to offend the

honorable members of the State Ethics Commission when I

tell you that their giving a lecture to one of our fellow

citizens on the evils of not putting an identifying tag

on phone calls alerting people to the SPLOST vote, while

letting all the pro-SPLOST people get away with all they

did, reminds me of wrestling, with the commission in the

role of referee. So often, in our society, the little

fellow who runs afoul of the law in some minor way gets

five years in the pokey, while the scoundrel who

embezzles millions gets away with probation or less. Some

events simply defy understanding. Or belief.

When I last looked up the

names of the members of the State Ethics Commission in

the State Bar directory, I found they were all lawyers.

The law creating the commission states there should be

five members, but not all five show up for hearings, and

I suspect there may be an unfilled vacancy on the board.

Three members are appointed

political party. One member is appointed by the

lieutenant governor, and one by the speaker of the House.

The appointment is for four years. For the five years

preceding their appointment, they cannot have run for

public office. (They don't have to be lawyers.) Section

21-5-4(e) of the Georgia Code states that "the

members shall not be compensated for their services but

they shall be reimbursed in an amount equal to the per

diem received by the General Assembly for each day or

portion thereof spent in serving as members of the

commission." Under section 54-7-21(b), that would be

$75.

This leads me to believe

that the State Ethics Commission members aren't getting

rich doing their job, and aren't really looking to do any

more work than they have to. This may explain what I

perceive as a propensity to dismiss cases relating to a

SPLOST vote that the people have already won. The polls

were the real battlefield. The battle has already been

decided.

In past years, I have made

fun of our legislators for passing laws like the one

proclaiming the Hawkinsville Civitan Club's "Shoot

the Bull" barbecue championship as the official

state beef barbecue championship cookoff. This law

clutters our lawbooks at section 50-3-75, along with laws

on an official possum, an official vegetable, an official

reptile, and other inane laws. Perhaps our citizens could

pay greater attention to the kind of people we elect as

legislators, and the kind of legislation that would keep

our elections clean and meaningful. It is clear from the

law that set it up that the ineffectiveness of our State

Ethics Commission is by design.

Frankly, I am grateful we

can find lawyers in this state public-spirited enough to

work for $75 a day. (With six customers, a barber could

make that in an hour. For steady work, $75 a day comes to

$18,000 a year.) At that pay rate, I can certainly

understand why the State Ethics Commission members might

not be eager to take on any more work than they have to.

Theirs is not a job where you make a lot of friends

either. Once you understand the system, whether you're

watching The Rock or the State Ethics Commission,

everything falls into place, and you can be at peace with

the world.

Who says you can't learn

anything from watching wrestling on television? Or

reading best-selling books? Or, for that matter, watching

the State Ethics Commission!

Claude Y. Paquin

Fayette County

[email protected]