Roy Moore of Alabama

A PROPER PERSPECTIVE

The following incidents illustrate how a culture of Special Interests corrupts and controls Alabama's government. As you read, remember that these privilege seekers are only half the problem. Without the privilege providers in government, no Special Interest abuse can occur. The first three examples focus on large corporations.

There is a prejudice against big business and professional lobbyists that is regrettably common, but is not shared by this author. I am pro-business whatever its size. Businesses become big for two reasons: success and profits. I celebrate both as part of the American dream. To hate these is to share the mindset of socialism and communism. Those who wish government would do something about them might be more at home in Cuba or China than in America.

In our democratic republic the citizens not only have the right of electing their officials but the right of access to them once elected. Whether private citizens are a big business, professional lobbyist or an average individual, they have the right to discuss with their elected officials matters of special interest to them, to argue their view of the matter and seek to persuade officials to their side. Those who would deny this right to solve corruption are advocating government by a small group of secluded elitists who would hand down their pronouncements to the people.

Having made this disclaimer, I hasten on to say, however, that big business is especially susceptible to Special Interest corruption for this reason: the bigger the business, the greater the power and the greater the power, the greater the temptation to use it to gain what is wanted by any means it requires, including abuse of the system.

ALABAMA POWER COMPANY

On the top floor of a tower next to the Capitol is the headquarters for Alabama Power's lobbying efforts. The company's executives come and go by its helipad on the roof. Security is tight and access from the ground is virtually impossible without the right credentials. If that sounds like the trappings of power, there is a reality to match. There is consensus among the knowledgeable that the company is the power among the powerful. When that power is applied to the legislature it almost always gets what it wants even if it means steamrolling over what is good and right. Here is an example.

The company unleashed its lobbying might to push through a bill nicknamed the Alabama Power Protectionism Legislation. The actual name was The Standard Cost Bill. At the time, deregulation of utilities seemed a possibility. If it happened, Alabama Power would face competition where there had been none. It was unpleasant to think of fighting a bidding war to keep customers it had taken for granted. Especially distasteful was the idea of having to win it by lowering prices, which meant lower profits. Even more awful was the thought of losing customers. Large companies were voracious consumers and paid lots of money every day for electricity. To let those rivers of money flowing into company coffers dry up was unthinkable. Something had to be done, and it was. A strategy was developed to make leaving Alabama Power for a competitor expensive enough to deter customers. The Stranded Cost bill had been born.

This is the essence of it. When a large customer, say U. S. Steel, built a new plant, Alabama Power spent large amounts on infrastructure to provide electricity. The investment would be recovered in specified amounts over a designated number of years. Meanwhile the Power Company's return on its investment came rolling in. The bill required that Alabama Power be paid for whatever investment costs had not been recovered when a customer left for another provider. The unrecovered investment was called stranded cost.

If you are now beginning to sympathize with Alabama Power and are thinking that it sounds only fair then you might be interested in this: Alabama Power has no stranded cost. The bill was feigned in a boxer's match, a general's fake front in war, a poker player's bluff. Its real purpose was not recovering costs, but stifling competition and keeping customers.

This was not a case of gentlemen politics won fair and square by the best man because of his greater skill. The Power Company used the dirty tactics of Special Interests to win a privilege that gave it an unjust advantage over competitors and customers. The intensity of resentment by other companies was the resulting consequences and supports this conclusion. The old State Chamber of Commerce had been reconstituted the Business Council of Alabama (BCA). All the expected businesses were members. Members commonly had opposing views on issues and on this issue many opposed Alabama Power. Opposing views were expected and was no cause for lasting harm among members. When Alabama Power successfully ran this power play, however, it broke up the BCA. Important members left, led by U.S. Steel. They departed because they were offended and angered by the injustice and unfairness of the Special Interest tactics.

This result brings to mind the Golden Rule most all of us learned very early in childhood: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. I bet the powerful men and women running powerful companies in Alabama also learned it. I bet, also, that they believed it was right and obeyed it, to some degree, because it was right and when they did not they felt guilty because they knew it was wrong. One can wish that these wise grown-up and great leaders would become as simple and as foolish as the children they once were, become unsophisticated enough to remember their childhood lesson. The Golden Rule is as true now as it was then. It applies as much to the high-stakes marketplace as to the carefree playground, and it is even more needed when millions are managed then when the lunch money in your pocket is all you have.

Let me give one more brief example of how Alabama Power uses its Special Interest might. In the session just ended, the legislature passed a bill banning houseboats and cigarette boats from Lake Martin. The cigarette boats ban is not the issue. It is the houseboat ban that stirs controversy. Houseboats are mainly owned by those of less affluent financial standing and, not uncommonly, less than upper class social standing. They are the way common people enjoy the beautiful lakes in Alabama. This pleasure has been taken away from them, made against the law, on Lake Martin.

The purported reason for this bill was pollution and dangerous conditions caused by overcrowding. Houseboats, it was said, were great offenders. A paraphrase of one proponent's argument goes like this: "This bill was necessary. Potential commercial developers and private individuals both have told us that unless we did something they would not come here."

It sounds like an intolerable mess, like what I have seen in movies where the setting is an Asia port city of millions of people and one scene shows a floating community on the river with thousands of squalid little shanty houseboats. Now I do not go to Lake Martin but I do occasionally cross over it, and I do not recall a traffic jam of houseboats.

I am aware that personal anecdotes are not worth much as evidence, so let me point out two gaping holes in the rationality given for the bill. The first concerns the statement about the lake's undesirable conditions discouraging potential residents. In light of this, how is the high price of lake property explained, for land on the lake is costly and stays that way. The simple truth is that high prices are caused by strong demand. If some complainers do not become residents, so what? There are plenty of others who will. The second contradicts the claim that pollution and safety hazards from overcrowding are the reason for the bill. If that were true, then the first water craft to be banned should have been the Sea Doo. They are as prolific as mosquitoes on the lake. They cover it with noise, fuel and potential accidents. These buzzing, motorized pests, these aggravating disturbers-of-the-peace, still rampage freely on the lake under no prohibition, because they are the preferred playthings of the rich and influential.

One legislator, very irate over the bill's passage, explained the real reason for the bill was snobbery and arrogance. The rich and powerful country club crowd, led by Alabama Power, who owns several thousand acres, simply did not want the kind of people associated with houseboats on the lake, he explained. His name for the legislation was the "Throw the Peasantry off the Lake" bill, noting it did not even allow for a disabilities exclusion.

It is a difficult task to harmonize this legislation with the self-evident truths that all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The powerful have trampled on the rights of the powerless. Rights that God calls inalienable they have determined are expendable. The people's government in Alabama has been a co-conspirator in the injustice.

This is only one of multitudes of wrongs done year after year. For us as citizens to not want to hear about it, not care about it and do nothing about it exposes our own ethics and morals to be at a very low ebb indeed. Changing it does not require involvement in civic busywork and useless political activity. These do no good because they have no power. The one thing needed is to put the right leader in the position that gives him sufficient power to change things, or to say it another way, get David into the valley where he can take on Goliath. The requirements for that are easy enough, simply help elect him as governor.

BELL SOUTH

ROY MOORE'S BATTLE WITH GOLIATH