AUSTIN - A powerful West Texas lawmaker has cajoled and berated state health officials for nearly three years, trying to persuade them to dedicate millions of dollars to an unproven anti-smoking product promoted by the lawmaker’s longtime friend and campaign contributor.
So what happens when a Texas legislator begins to believe his press clippings? Or when that same legislator loses sight of the reason he is in office to begin with? Well, if you’re David Swinford, you get a DUMB@$$ AWARD.
Swinford, a West Texas Republican who, by all indications, isn’t exactly the sharpest tool in the shed, has decided to hold $5 million hostage so that he could get favorable treatment for a friend and campaign contributor.
House State Affairs Committee Chairman David Swinford, R-Dumas, is now threatening to shift more than $5 million in annual tobacco prevention funds from the Texas Department of State Health Services to the Texas Education Agency in hopes that health officials will respond to his demands.
Yep, there’s nothing quite like forgetting that government is not a feeding trough for the well-connected and well-heeled. What makes this even worse is that Swinford is using his position to attempt to benefit a campaign contributor. You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours…and maybe I’ll go home with a DUMB@$$ AWARD, eh?
An advocate of clean government said Swinford’s badgering of state bureaucrats amounts to an abuse of power by one of the most influential state legislators.
“Pushing something that to me is nothing but snake oil and using all your weight, it’s just misuse of your position, official misconduct,” said Suzy Woodford, executive director of the government watchdog group, Common Cause. “It’s cronyism ‚Äö√Ñ√Æ he’s my buddy and he’s been a political supporter of mine.”
Swinford’s involvement with an anti-smoking product may seem unlikely for a West Texas grain dealer, but he has proved a faithful advocate for “A Short Story of Life,” a cardboard cost-of-smoking calculator shaped like a pack of cigarettes.
When users move a sliding panel up or down, the device reveals how much is lost in years lived and dollars spent, depending on the number of cigarettes smoked.
The cardboard calculators were developed by Swinford’s friend in the grain business for 30 years, Panhandle birdseed dealer Rodney Burd, along with Burd’s brother, a North Dakota professor.
Hey, what’s the point of having friends if you can’t help them out, right? Given Swinford’s position, he probably figures that steering some tax dollars to a campaign contributor is good business. Who knows; if Swinford can grease his friend’s palm, perhaps some of that largesse will find it’s way into Swinford’s campaign coffer?
Swinford said Rodney Burd has supported his campaigns financially because they share beliefs. But Burd’s campaign contributions jumped from $100 in 2002 to $1,000 a year since Swinford began pushing the state to buy Burd’s anti-smoking product.
Burd said he’s motivated by his concern about children smoking, and for $3.7 million, he could put the calculators in the hands of fourth- through 12th-graders statewide.
State health officials have resisted, noting that legislative budget writers have mandated that smoking-prevention funds be spent only on programs that have been scientifically tested and proven effective.
There’s no proof Burd’s calculator will actually change behavior, state health experts told Swinford, and adopting it would deplete funds needed to continue a concentrated, comprehensive anti-smoking campaign that is reducing smoking rates in East Texas with its high rates of lung disease.
You know, there’s a word for this- it’s called “corruption”, but then Swinford’s a Republican, so he probably doesn’t have anything to worry about. The likelihood of a Republican in Texas, even a corrupt one, being voted out of office is about the same as me being elected Queen of England. Of course, this hardly means that we can’t shed some light on Swinford’s reprehensible, self-interested, inappropriate behavior. The man’s a DUMB@$$…why not treat him like one?
The sad thing is that with the amount of money available to Texas for anti-smoking programs, the potential for this sort of abuse is beyond huge. The potential for abuse and misdirection is significant and will remain that way given the large sums of money floating around. As long as there are people like David Swinford willing to play politics with money that belongs to Texans, we should keep in mind that there’s a place for corrupt demagogues like this. It’s called prison.
