With the federal government being trimmed by millions of jobs and dollars, and illegal immigrants and possibly a few legal ones being deported by the bunches, several state employees skimming tens of thousands of dollars seems like small potatoes.
Nevertheless, we hope readers will pay attention to a trial in Nashville starting today involving two of those state employees. One, Glen Casada, is a former Republican speaker of the Tennessee House. The other, Cade Cothren, had been Casada’s chief of staff, but he resigned in May 2019 over a series of sexually explicit and racist text messages.
Then Cothren, allegedly with the knowledge of Casada and former state Rep. Robin Smith, R-Hixson, concocted a fake company, Phoenix Solutions, to provide constituent mail services to members of the General Assembly and, eventually, to state political office campaigns. Casada and Smith then allegedly gently twisted the arms of their fellow legislators — who each get a $3,000 posting and printing allowance — to use Phoenix Solutions and, in turn, allegedly profited off bribes and kickbacks from the business.
(Two of those legislators who opted to use the company were former state Rep. Patsy Hazlewood, R-Signal Mountain, and state Rep. Esther Helton-Hayes, R-East Ridge, both colleagues and friends of Smith. Both have been subpoenaed for the trial.)
We’d like to say we hope for better from the leaders we elect to public office, but they’re as human and corruptible as any accountant, dentist, minister or store clerk.