Mixing business with politics
A Lexington Herald-Leader story on Sunday documented real conflicts-of-interest for 31 state legislators, ranging from Rep. Rocky Adkins, who, as House Majority Floor Leader, protects the coal industry for whom he works, to Sen. Damon Thayer who helps the horse industry get what it wants.
It's dismaying that conflicts of interest are so widespread and widely accepted at the Capitol, the newspaper quoted Truman Hurt, who lobbied with KFTC for community causes during the past two sessions.
"When you serve in Frankfort, your job is supposed to be serving the people fairly," said Hurt, who lives in Perry County. "You shouldn't be worrying about your other job until you go home. If you can't draw that line, you shouldn't be there."
Most legislators denied that their conflict of interest clouded their judgement when representing the public's best interest in Frankfort.
Read the whole story here.
Of course this is the case.
As long as people cannot be primarily legislators, they will be primarily something else. We will even only have candidates that consider such a thing 'fun' who are rich enough to take a few months off every year from that primary gig.