per diem

Not everything is pork says the TNGOP spokesman on his personal blog:

James Butler digs into pork and political payoffs in the Tennessee state budget in a piece at ClarksvilleOnline.com headlined The true cost of pork spending.

Corruption also rears its ugly head in Tennessee, at least last year. Rep.

Nashville should be so lucky as to have access to "an account set up to pay for the per-diem shelter services."

Jennifer Peebles gives us the goo

You can tell when someone has been in the Tennessee General Assembly too long when he or she starts going on junkets of dubious value to the State's taxpayers. Kinda like this person:

House Speaker Pro Tempore Lois DeBerry received $31,967 in per diem payments last year, more than any other state lawmaker, according to a review of 2007legislative expense payments.

In the case of DeBerry, many

Mediaverse suggests that the salacious details regarding legislative per diems may not be all that scandalous when looked at in context:

The Knoxville News Sentinel’s Tom Humphrey has not one but two articles on legislator pay. One, on the per diems received by our representatives:

A review of 2007 legislative expense payments by the News Sentinel shows that 22 legislators received more in per diem than the base salary for a lawmaker, $18,123.

I was perusing the year end summaries for the House candidates, and found out something interesting...Rep. Sherry Jones needs to get a car with better gas mileage:

KROGER
ELYSIAN FIELDS
NASHVILLE, TN 37211

12/16/2007 $239.03
FOR H. RISE RECEPTION

State Rep. Stacey Campfield says that the proposal by a Democrat state Senator from Memphis for a big increase in the "per diem" given to legislators when they are in session is nothing but a grab for more money that legislators don't need. And he's got the numbers to prove it.

Stacey Campfield makes the case that no legislator should be asserting that their per diem is not enough to cover food, lodging and travel costs of being in the legislature: