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To the editor:
This is an effort, feeble though it may be, to raise public consciousness about a serious problem confronting the state. The issue, which could affect future generations dramatically, is most often referred to as “Conflicts of Interest.”
No topic has been more inconsistently reported or written about; the blame must be borne equally by politician, journalist and citizens of Virginia.
First, let’s assess the problem, place the blame and name the names.
Virginia’s government features one of the strongest executive branches in the Union, but our government also retains normal checks and balances between the executive, legislative and judicial branches. Virginia also has a part-time legislature, an advantage not to be sacrificed lightly. Please cast a careful eye north of the Potomac to see the horrors of full-time legislative action if you doubt my premise.
The legislature generally has not measured up to its charge: to judge the qualifications of its members, to punish for disorderly behavior and to expel members for violating reasonable standards of ethical conduct. In the case of State Senator Peter K. Babalas, because of a lack of knowledge about the distinct roles of the three branches of government by the leadership of the General Assembly, failure to act decisively has deepened the present morass.
Next we come to the Virginia law on the subject, the so-called Comprehensive Conflict of Interests Act. the language used in the definitions section of this Act is incomprehensible to legal scholar and layman alike. Virginia’s Attorney General and almost all editorial writers refuse to face the obvious, but support instead the gobbledygook when they think it will help nail Babalas and react with righteous indignation when the mumbo-jumbo catches a poor schoolteacher’s husband who is on the Board of Supervisors in some small county. It is time for Governor Battles, Attorney General Terry and former Senator Brault to forget their pride of authorship and admit that simpler language and more vigorous prosecution would be an intellectually more honest, if hot necessarily the most political, solution.
My principal concern is the erosion of legislative power: the imposition of restraints on the individual
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