Take me out of the ball game ...

There was a time -- or was there? -- when citizens elected to Congress and our state legislatures came up with all their own proposals for laws. Whether from suggestions popping up at cracker-barrel sessions with the folks at the general store back home, from huddles with fellow senators or representatives, or even from old-movie style, middle-of-the-night brainstorms, our politicians would introduce bills for a better America; a better New Mexico; a better Santa Fe ...Today, more likely than not, bills are crafted not by the lawmakers who have their names on them, but by lawyers whose full-time job is drafting the gobbledygook that goes into modern legislation, then plugging in language to the benefit of their corporate bosses -- and the detriment of nearly everyone else.Then those lawyers, along with disgraced or otherwise rejected politicians, take a legislator to lunch -- or dinner, and drinks.This bill, representative, would be of great benefit to your constituents -- as you can see from the high-minded language in its title. Surely you'd like to be remembered as sponsor of this great initiative, or that great reform (or whatever guise we want to give it ) ...Take -- please -- the Administrative Accountability Act: House Bill 685. Who in the world is against holding bureaucrats accountable?Not Rep. Dan Silva, that's for sure; the Albuquerque Democrat got snookered into putting his name on it, thinking -- or at least saying -- he was striking a blow for small business against our state's governmental regulators.But this is a bogus bill, aimed at benefiting enviro-villains such as the copper companies and the gas and oil guys.It would expose whistle-blowers -- folks like those who exposed the corruption in the state treasurer's offices. Who would dare call attention to environmental depredation or health and safety hazards if it means not being able to feed the kids next month? Yet this bill would restrict inspections by our state's Oil Conservation Division, hastening health hazards and promoting pollution.Worst of all, it would take away state agencies' rulemaking authority on the smallest matters -- making an already thin-stretched Legislature write a law for every regulation. Oil spills? Truck sizes? Mine contamination? To do something about it would take a full-blown run through the Roundhouse.All this and more from your -- or part of Albuquerque's -- friendly representative, Dan Silva, and whoever might support his bill ...Now Silva's the featured fella on radio commercials portraying a baseball game -- with Big Oil, Big Tobacco, the pharmaceutical lobby and other heavy hitters at bat. Then the announcer names Silva as a pinch-hitter -- against the good people of New Mexico.He comes off as a stooge for President Bush and his corporate sponsors, who back in the 1970s cooked up an organization called the American Legislative Exchange Council. The group churns out bills making mischief with state governments already shorthanded in their attempts to rein in environmental pillage, assaults on America's health and legal thievery from consumers. Silva's bill is the work of ALEC.The ads assailing Silva are paid for by yet another nationwide operation, called the League of Young Voters -- but with whose money, who knows. They're brutal. We don't know how safe Silva's seat is, but if they were to be replayed in the fall of 2008, the town drunk would have a chance to beat him, barring a brilliant spate of lawmaking that would give voters pause about his expendability.If he's smart, and Roundhouse veterans say he certainly is, Silva will find some friendly colleagues to kill this bill -- maybe by amending it to the point that it's unrecognizable to its real authors, thus allowing Silva to act perplexed and maybe even vote against it. Stranger things have happened, here and in most lawmaking bodies.