The Ever Duplicitous Senator Thurman Adams

If I were a 79-year-old man, I would be concerned about the legacy I’d leave after my death. If I were a 79-year-old state legislator, I’d wonder how I’d be remembered after I died. Would people say of me that I primarily had the public interest at heart or my own? Would they say I had substantially left my state better off because of my efforts than I had found it? That I was fair, open-minded, honest, and democratic? That I had acted ethically as an elected official?

Arguably, the future legacy of state Senator and Senate Pro Tem Thurman Adams was evidenced by News Journal Cris Barrish selecting him to get the perspective of a legislator who actually had the audacity to defend nepotism in state government hiring practices:

Senate President Pro Tem Thurman Adams said relatives should be free to seek state jobs. While no one in 79-year-old Adams' immediate family has a state job, his grandson's wife, Stephanie Adams, became a justice of the peace in 2006.

"If you say you can't hire relatives, I don't know where you are going to get people from," said Adams, D-Bridgeville. Relatives of lawmakers with state jobs, he said, include "very qualified individuals." (link)

While I don’t believe that accidents of birth should preclude anyone from being fairly considered for tax-funded positions, it is pure sophistry to argue as Adams did "If you say you can't hire relatives, I don't know where you are going to get people from." Right, Thurm, in a state of 800,000 plus people, only the relatives of lawmakers are qualified to fill state government jobs.

It is tempting to say that by the very act of Barrish asking Adams for a comment, Adams had been had. Barrish had effectively established Senator Thurman Adams as the go-to guy to provide the corrupt “side” on shady government practices. How humiliating.

It turns out, however, that Thurman Adams had more at stake in his answer than Barrish, apparently, knew at the time. It happens that Senator Thurman Adams does have a relative working in state government: his grandson Drew Slater.

Guess what Mr. Slater’s job title is? Legislative Aid. Guess which chamber Mr. Slater labors in aiding legislators? The State Senate. Guess who is in charge of the State Senate. Why, Senate Pro Tem Thurman Adams.

What a coincidence.

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If you believe as I did that Thurman Adams’ answer to Cris Barrish is evidence that he is not the least bit concerned about what the media thinks of him, new evidence indicates that he actually does care. But he arguably cares in way that is unlike how most people care with a minimally functioning conscience. Allow me to illustrate.

During the 2007 legislative year, Senator Thurman Adams told Senator Karen Peterson that her bill to extend Delaware’s Freedom of Information Act to the Delaware Legislature would get a full committee hearing during the 2008 legislative session instead of dying the death of the committee desk drawer veto as it has done for several years.

Senator Peterson told many people about Senator Adams’ promise. She told groups of people like the Progressive Democrats of Delaware, and listening audiences on WDEL and on the Progressive Voices program I co-host with Marian Peleski, as well as numerous persons individually.

Surprise! Senator Thurman Adams recently announced that he would not keep his promise to Senator Peterson. The reason is juvenile. According to a source who allegedly heard it from his own lips, Senator Adams has decided not to let Senator Peterson’s FOIA bill come up for a vote because--now get this--it would then appear he had caved in to media pressure regarding it.

Imagine that. Instead of being embarrassed and conscience-stricken for being exposed as the person who keeps Delaware’s legislative branch closed to the taxpayers, Senator Adams views the prospect of the bill being voted upon as a personal attack on his fragile ego.

Thurman Adams is a 79-year-old baby. He is so thoroughly compromised and unprincipled, he cannot even be trusted to keep his own word.