News

By Bobby Harrison, The Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal
August 20, 2008


The current set of guilty pleas in federal court in the Northern District of Mississippi by Georgia executives with the The Facility Group is a head scratcher.

As I understand it, the executives' guilty pleas are for giving campaign contributions to then-Gov. Ronnie Musgrove because they thought it might help them curry favor with him later.

Well, with all due respect to the prosecutors at the U.S. Department of Justice, they had better get off their hindquarters and get busy. Under that definition, they can prosecute just about every politician and campaign donor in the country.

For instance, the Mississippi Association of Educators routinely interviews candidates for state offices. Among the questions is: Will the candidates support a pay raise for teachers? MAE is made up of teachers.

Following those interviews, MAE normally endorses candidates and, yes, makes a campaign contribution, albeit a modest one. And rest assured, every candidate MAE endorses is for a teacher pay raise.

What is different there from what The Facility Group did?

Here is another example.

In 1999, Musgrove had the support of many bankers when he ran for governor. During his term as governor, Musgrove vetoed legislation that would have given small loan companies owned by banks immunity from lawsuits for loans that critics said took advantage of the poor by charging them for features they would never need.

Many bankers throughout the state were furious. They threw their support - and campaign contributions - to Haley Barbour. As governor, Barbour steered to passage legislation to provide relief to the bankers.

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