Taxpayers need to know details of legislative jaunts

For textbook examples of the sense of entitlement that can make some public officials forget whom they work for, one couldn’t do better than the responses some Tennessee legislators gave to questions about a European junket in 2011.

Consider the response of state Sen. Reginald Tate of Memphis, the only Democrat among six lawmakers on the trip: “I don’t have any problems with it,” Tate told The Commercial Appeal reporter Jody Callahan during a telephone interview this week. “Hurry up and finish, because you’re getting on my nerves now.”

Or how about former state Rep. Joe Carr, a Lascassas Republican, when he was asked if he had any concerns that the five-day trip was financed by a tea party poobah who has been encouraging anti-Muslim sentiment among state legislators: “I don’t give a rat’s ass,” he replied.

It’s not hard to hear a sense of disappointment in those remarks by a couple of politicians who probably assumed after five years that they would never have to answer questions about a questionable gift. Suddenly, along come pesky reporters asking for explanations, and now the thing is going public.

It’s not that anything illegal took place. The money for the jaunt, ostensibly to educate the lawmakers about the threat of terrorism perpetrated by Islamic radicals, came from someone who’s not a registered lobbyist and therefore didn’t have to be reported.

Tate said the trip produced no legislation. “I don’t think I brought back (anything) that I put into effect as legislation as far as it relates to Islam,” he said. All six lawmakers on the trip, however, have introduced or supported what some have labeled anti-Islamic legislation.

The trip, which included stops in London, Brussels, Antwerp and Amsterdam, only came to light because reporters encountered it during an investigation of the finances of state Rep. Jeremy Durham, who was expelled last week from the General Assembly for sexual misconduct.

Durham invested campaign funds in the company of Republican donor Andy Miller, whose Tennessee Freedom Coalition, labeled a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, organizes events that are designed to whip up anti-Muslim sentiment. The group spearheaded opposition to the development of an Islamic center in Murfreesboro.

Lawmakers on the trip described it as a useful opportunity to find how European cities are coping with terrorism.

“I wish that we would’ve had more room and opportunity for more lawmakers to see what we saw,” said Sen. Bill Ketron, R-Murfreesboro.

What the public might wish for is a change in the financial reporting requirements for legislators that would prevent the public from being kept in the dark about such a trip for such a long time.

A truly transparent system would reveal who is traveling where at whose expense — for educational purposes or anything else.