Alabama House Minority Leader Craig Ford spent most of his recent interview with The Post Online whining about his Republican counterparts. Ford referred to the Republicans’ legislative agenda as “a ‘get even’ approach.” That’s interesting…To the rest of us it looked like they were going point by point down their list of promises to Alabama voters — turning each campaign promise into a legislative achievement.
Of course it’s easy to understand how this common sense approach doesn’t make sense to Rep. Ford — after all, the Democrats didn’t lose control after 136 years by actually KEEPING their promises. Alabamians got tired of the ol’ bait and switch so they elected a Republican super-majority in both chambers. That’s called a mandate, Rep. Ford. And what did the GOP do with their mandate? They did exactly what they said they would do. That’s how you gain credibility — something else the Democrats are short on right now.
But all of that is just a side note.
What really jumped out to me in Rep. Ford’s interview was a quote he gave that really illustrates just how out of touch he and the Democratic party are.
“Roger Bedford and I asked a fiscal analyst to go back and look at the Legislature over a 20-year period,” Ford said. “The Democrats have invoked cloture an average of two times per session. Last year, the Republicans used cloture 67 times in the Senate and 40-something times in the House.”
Now who in the world thinks it is a wise use of taxpayer funded resources to force a taxpayer-funded employee to dig up a 20-year history of cloture petitions? Our budgets are tight and we are facing tough choices that impact every Alabamian, but Ford and Bedford are still wasting money — just like they did for 136 years while in the majority — digging up a 20-year history on cloture petitions for partisan politics?
They should be researching a 20-year history of RSA payments by taxpayers and wondering where they went wrong. Or maybe they should look up a 20-year history on math scores to figure out what works. Or just maybe they should come up with a reasonable explanation for why they only want school choice for rich folks instead of the best possible education for all of Alabama’s school children. Instead they’re employing tax dollars for cloture petition research.
Pathetic.
