Georgia at the bottom in government ethics

This is not about individual ethical violations, but about our inadequate laws of ethical regulations for our state government officials.

Forty-seven other states have either conflict-of-interest guidelines or open-meeting laws for state legislatures;  many have both.   Georgia, along with Tennessee and Oklahoma, has neither.

We do have laws that limit how much lobbyists can spend on legislators while the legislature is in session -- which is, what? . . .  40 days a year, I think.    So they just do all the wining and dining the week before the legislative session begins.

When you have all of the state government officers and control of both legislative houses controlled by one party, you are asking for ethical troubles.

For once, I'm not saying the Republicans are worse.   There were years when Democrats had control of everything, and they didn't see fit to establish such ethical regulations.   The fact that it's now the Republicans doesn't mean they're categorically worse -- not on this issue, anyway.

It's said that we get the government we deserve.   If that's true, then we deserve to be cheated, because we elected them.   So we should do something about it.    Nothing's likely to happen until we have more of a balance between the power of the parties in the state.

One more reason to vote Democratic in the next elections.

Ralph