A Contrast in Priorities

On the same day that state Senator Jim Bryson announced that he was running for governor in order to help restore ethics in state government, The Tennessean reports that the current governor has failed to meet a statutory deadline for appointing two members to the state's ethics commission. The stated reasons for this failure to comply with the law create more questions than they answer. The governor has had to ask the attorney general to opine as to whether potential nominees have prohibitive conflicts of interests, but Representative Donna Rowland is right to question why the governor "can’t find someone without a conflict in a state with 6 million people.” Furthermore, The Tennessean reports that the governor only requested the AG opinion the day before the deadline, a fact which would cause one to ask why ethics has not been higher on the governor's priority list.