Republicans in Mississippi still like to quote the “11th Commandment” coined in 1966 by Ronald Reagan when the eventual U.S. president ran for governor of California.
“Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican.”
But as with many of the first 10 commandments, Reagan’s 11th is frequently broken, especially more so as the GOP has become the overwhelmingly dominant party in Mississippi.
There was a time when Republicans were so severely outnumbered in this state that they kept their internal differences out of the public eye. They knew that they had to put on a unified front if they were going to have a chance to unseat any Democrats, who had a monolithic hold on Mississippi for a century following Reconstruction.
With the script long since flipped, though, the Republicans feel no qualms about airing their differences.
The acrimony has reached a new level with State Auditor Shad White’s tell-all book about the massive welfare scandal his office uncovered more than four years ago.
Accounts of the book say that White is particularly harsh on two fellow Republicans, Attorney General Lynn Fitch and former U.S. Attorney Mike Hurst, who is now chairman of the state Republican Party.
White claims that Fitch did nothing to go after the misspending that his office brought to her attention, and that Hurst was upset about not being brought into the case early on only because he wanted to use it to further his political ambitions.
Both Fitch and Hurst fired back in recent days, claiming that “Mississippi Swindle: Brett Favre and the Welfare Scandal that Shocked America” is a work of fiction, at least as it comes to their actions and motivations in the case. They also question the propriety of White writing a book about an ongoing investigation and prosecution and trying to profit financially from the inside knowledge he gained in his government role.
The ambitious state auditor is vulnerable to that latter criticism. There are conflicting opinions as to whether writing the book at this time was either ethical or legal. The state Ethics Commission’s director, Tom Hood, has been quoted as saying it appears to be OK. A literal reading of Mississippi’s Ethics in Government Act, however, might suggest otherwise. Among its provisions, as recently quoted in a story by the Magnolia Tribune website, “No person may intentionally use or disclose information gained in the course of or by reason of his official position or employment as a public servant in any way that could result in pecuniary benefit for himself, any relative, or any other person, if the information has not been communicated to the public or is not public information.”
White’s decision to keep the feds initially out of the investigation is also looking more suspect in light of an unrelated scandal brewing around the state prosecutor to whom he turned instead, Hinds County District Attorney Jody Owens.
Owens is tangled up in the public corruption case that resulted this past week in the resignation of a Jackson councilwoman, Angelique Lee, who pleaded guilty to federal bribery charges. The case emanates from a sting operation in which undercover FBI agents lined up support for a phony hotel development in the capital city by offering payoffs. Owens, who has real estate interests separate from his government job, was fooled into being a partner in the bogus endeavor. How much he knew about the bribes and whether he helped distribute them has not been disclosed. The charging documents against Lee say she received a $10,000 chunk of her payoff from an unidentified, unindicted co-conspirator. More indictments are expected, though.
White would not have known about Owens’ difficulties at the time that he worked with him on the welfare fraud case, nor by the time he finished his book. But Owens’ situation raises questions about how good a judge of character the state auditor is.
White likes to have the last word, and he has often become snippy in delivering it. When asked about the criticism of his book from Hurst and Fitch, the auditor fired off a biting four-paragraph response in which he said Hurst “was not a particularly good U.S. attorney” and a “wannabe politician.” He also referred to Fitch as “Lazy Lynn.”
I can’t speak to White’s evaluation of Hurst. It does seem, though, politically foolish for the state auditor, who is eyeing what is predicted to be a crowded race for governor in three years, to get into a spitting match with the state chairman of the party whose nomination White would be seeking
As for Fitch, White’s take-down of her is warranted. Not just the state auditor but also several other state officials have complained about how little cooperation they have been getting from the Attorney General’s Office since Fitch got that job. Still, it would be nice if White wouldn’t resort to the Trumpesque, juvenile name-calling.
A Rhodes Scholar with a law degree from Harvard, White could stand to use his intelligence — and some Southern tact — to be more artful in his choice of words when he’s trying to ridicule an adversary.
- Contact Tim Kalich at 662-581-7243 or tkalich@gwcommonwealth.com.
