There’s a very good op-ed piece in today’s Louisville Courier-Journal by J.T. “Jerry” Miller, commissioner of the Kentucky Department of Parks under Gov. Ernie Fletcher. Miller does a terrific job of articulating the need for transparency that transcends partisanship, as all of us of whatever political stripe are entitled to know what our government does with the money we give it.

From the federal level to many states across the country, Miller sees an increasing call for transparency across parties, and that’s a perspective I appreciate. It makes me feel a little less like I may be tilting at windmills, in my suspecting/hoping for/seeing the development of an Age of Transparency, to read that someone else thinks much along the same lines, even though he doesn’t go so far as to give it a grandiose name.

Miller lays out, very clearly and logically, why greater transparency is necessary to democracy and how it benefits all of us no matter where we fall on the ideological spectrum. He tells the story, also, of what kind of resistance transparency legislation has met with in the Kentucky legislature, despite popular bipartisan support. I don’t think Miller or anyone else is much surprised by that, as the “you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours” relationship among some legislators and bureaucrats can yield good benefits for both on the one hand, while on the other hand angry bureaucrats can make things really hard for legislators when push comes to shove.

Miller covers well the role a responsible press plays, and I don’t find any gaps in his presentation and analysis of the importance of money and the monitoring of money. There’s one piece that’s missing from Miller’s excellent op-ed, however, and it’s the piece that I believe gets legislators to move more quickly. But it’s not to be used just because it gets them to move faster. It’s to be used because it is the primary reason for bringing transparency to government to safeguard democracy.

It’s people’s lives. And, too often, their deaths.

That’s what the money points to—the effect on people’s lives when it’s misappropriated or mismanaged because of greed, croneyism, or even in service to some bureaucrat’s sense of power. Miller’s focus on money is important, but it’s in terms that politicians are comfortable dealing with. They are more set to squirming when forced to confront the wrecked lives, and the lives cut short.

So bring on the publicity about profiteering and the awarding of no-bid contracts, but don’t forget that there are people whose stories aren’t picked up by the media as a matter of course, because they’re ordinary people without a lot of power of their own to make headlines. Humanity slips away from government when it’s not shaped by the stories of the people who are its reason for being. I’d call them not just human interest stories. More like human necessity stories.

Peace.

Deborah Alicen