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Today's Black Public Officials Have Abandoned Their Constituents
By Donald V. Watkins
©Copyrighted and Published (via Facebook) on April 18, 2017
©Copyrighted and Published (via Facebook) on April 18, 2017
Last week, former Alabama governor Robert Bentley resigned from office after reaching a "sweetheart" plea deal with prosecutors in which he pled guilty to two misdemeanors. Judge W. Troy Massey, a black Montgomery County district court judge, accepted Bentley's plea deal. Judge Massey also accepted the recommendation of prosecutors that Bentley receive no jail time for his crimes. Of course, Judge Massey was free to reject this recommendation. He could have sentenced Bentley for up to 12 months in jail for each misdemeanor.
Unlike the trial judge in Florida who sentenced actor Wesley Snipes to 12 months in jail for each of his three misdemeanor tax convictions and made these sentences run consecutively (for a total of three years in prison), Judge Massey imposed no jail time on Bentley. Like a Hollywood celebrity, Bentley was in and out of Judge Massey's courtroom in record time.
Bentley's plea deal was reached after Judge Greg Griffin, a black Montgomery County circuit court jurist, issued a temporary restraining order against the Alabama Legislature in an unsuccessful attempt to block the House of Representatives from impeaching Bentley. This unprecedented abuse of judicial power and authority lasted less than 24 hours before the Alabama Supreme Court overturned Judge Griffin's ban on the impeachment proceedings. Griffin is a Bentley appointee to the bench.
Bentley, a two-term conservative Republican governor, and Rebekah Mason, his "senior political adviser" and married girlfriend, exercised a stunning degree of dominion and control over most of the state's black public officials. All of these officials are self-proclaimed Democrats, including the black lawmakers who served on the House Judiciary Committee that was conducting Bentley's impeachment proceedings.
Bentley had a well-known record of treating black lawmakers and other black public officials like his personal servants. When he was not chastising them publicly for what he perceived as their "bad" behavior, Bentley was making these compromised officials carry his dirty political baggage like bellhops. For a mere pat on the head, they dutifully complied with whatever commands Bentley barked out at them.
Not only did Bentley engage in widespread public corruption and ethics violations as governor, but he also: (a) seized control of and trashed Alabama's two flagship, historically black state universities just like segregationist governor John B. Patterson did during the 1950s; (b) deprived black and poor Alabamians of adequate healthcare, and bragged about it; (c) discriminated against black voters in the state's legislative redistricting plan; and (d) erected a massive barrier to black voter participation in the electoral process when he summarily closed driver's license offices in 31 predominantly black counties in a state where voters have to present a government-issued identification card prior to voting.
Despite Bentley's documented track record of hostility toward black Alabamians, not one black House member signed the bipartisan Judiciary Committee's resolution calling for Bentley's impeachment. Black lawmakers abandoned the political interests of their constituents to engage in an unthinkable political orgy with Bentley and Rebekah Mason.
Another glaring example of black public officials abandoning their constituents came to light last year in Montgomery, Alabama. Black members of the city council knowingly allowed municipal court Chief Judge Armstead Lester Hayes, III, to resurrect and operate an unconstitutional debtor's court that targeted the city's black and poor residents. This court system had been successfully challenged and dismantled by black council members in the early 1980s. Judge Hayes' version of this oppressive debtor's court system was much harsher on black defendants than the one that was dismantled in the 1980s.
The resurrected debtor's court ended after the Southern Poverty Law Center and Equal Justice Under the Law organizations sued the city of Montgomery on behalf of a 50-year-old black grandmother -- Ms. Harriet Cleveland -- who was jailed for 31 days over her inability to pay court fines for an old traffic ticket due to losing her job. Ms. Cleveland's lawsuit resulted in a settlement in which the city agreed to stop jailing municipal court defendants who cannot afford to pay fines for traffic offenses and minor misdemeanors.
There you have it: Robert Bentley pled guilty to two ethics violations charges and waltzed out of a Montgomery courtroom as a free man. Ms. Harriet Cleveland was imprisoned in a Montgomery jail because she did not have money to pay her court fines for a traffic ticket. In each instance, black elected officials were in positions of power to stop these injustices and failed to do so.
Black public officials are elected to serve the interests of their constituents within the halls of government on a multitude of quality of life issues. Most of them, however, abandon their constituents' political interests as soon as the swearing-in ceremony ends.
Too many of today's black public officials are preoccupied with increasing their pay, traveling to conferences in America and abroad, begging for free tickets to concerts and sporting events, issuing feel-good proclamations on symbolic subjects, and posting photos on Facebook and Instagram in an effort to project an image of perceived power. When they do fight for something, it is usually a battle for front-row seats at an entertainment event, or for VIP recognition at commemorative events celebrating the courage of civil rights icons of the 1950s and 60s.
Most of today's black public officials are nothing more than castrated political eunuchs who perpetually hustle taxpayers, lobbyists, and corporate executives for extra perks in life solely because they are public officials. For these misguided individuals, dedicated public service to their communities has been replaced by non-stop self-aggrandizement.
By their collective failure to exercise the power of their offices in a manner that exudes integrity and political muscle, most black public officials have transformed once-powerful public offices into ceremonial positions that offer the black community little in benefits beyond important-sounding job titles. As a result, black communities in Alabama and across America are suffering terribly from a lack of effective leadership and basic government services.
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