Unintended Consequences (Aren’t you glad you don’t live in Alabama?)

Alabama's harsh new immigration law has been in effect for less than three months, but it has already wreaked the kind of havoc that's inevitable when legislators are so obsessed with driving out illegal immigrants that they don't think much about who else gets hurt in the process.

Growers have seen immigrant labor disappear and produce rot in the fields as they try to recruit the citizens the law's proponents promised would do the work the illegal immigrants were supposedly stealing from them. An outfit called Grow Alabama hired more than 50 legal workers to pick tomatoes, but most quit in a day or two, and only one stuck it out for two weeks.

The latest news from Alabama is that the Republican controlled legislature is seriously considering a bill that would provide work-release prisoners to fill the gap in agricultural workers. This is not a new idea. It was recently tried in Georgia and failed miserably.  “It was like, ‘Good Lord, you people can’t be helped.Have you all not been paying attention? ?’” said Bryan Tolar, president of the Georgia Agribusiness Council.

Some of the fallout is faintly comical. A Mercedes-Benz executive visiting from Germany was arrested in Tuscaloosa while driving without proper ID and taken to jail on suspicion of being an illegal immigrant. He was eventually freed, but not before Alabama's governor got involved because Mercedes is one of several automakers with Alabama plants crucial to the state's economy.

Less amusing was what happened to a veteran who had just come home from Afghanistan and was trying to get license plates for his new truck.Because the new law doesn't recognize military IDs , he was told he'd have to come back with his birth certificate. (You don't have to be a citizen to serve.)

Aren’t you glad you glad you live in Massachusetts?

“Sunlight is the best disinfectant.”

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis

Congratulations to State Treasurer Stephen Grossman for bringing more sunlight into our lives. He recently put the Commonwealth’s checkbook on line. This includes payments to contractors, vendors, employees and retirees. The “open checkbook” database will be linked to the state’s website and provide users searchable access to some 15 million payments over the last three years to employees, retirees and about 50,800 vendors covering more than $80 billion in state spending.

The site covers some 72% of state expenditures. What is not included is confidential information such as payments for welfare and social services to clients, payments for foster care and confidential law enforcement spending.

”It’s a philosophy of government. It’s a style of government. It’s a style of leadership. And it works”, said Grossman.