|
Talk to any Wal-Mart or QT clerk these days and they will tell you that they almost never take checks anymore, but that hasn’t stopped Pima County Attorney Barbara LaWall from using the not-so-hot button issue to promote herself to and through southern Arizona business owners. In February, small business owners, and out of business residents received letters from LaWall touting her Bad Check Program.
Some of those businesses have been out of business for at least a decade.
“The usage of checks as a payment system has plummeted in the U.S. in recent years. In 2000, checks were used in more than 40 billion transactions, according to a recent report from the Federal Reserve’s Cash Products Office. That number is down to less than 20 billion, according to the Fed’s most recent numbers, which are based on a survey conducted in October 2012,” according to an article in The Atlantic.
Because, as The Atlantic article notes, “checks are now regularly scanned for MICR information and converted into automated clearinghouse transactions,” it is nearly impossible to successfully pass a bad check.
Still, LaWall’s latest Bad Check campaign provides businesses with large glossy signs that include LaWall’s name writ large, and instructions to post those signs “prominently in your place of business….” Given the timing of the campaign, the appearance of the signs and the decline in check usage, LaWall’s promotion seems to be more about promoting her re-election than protecting business owners.
What better way is there to win votes? Who could compete with a candidate who has their name displayed “prominently” in local business – giving the implied endorsement of those same small business owners – and do it on the taxpayers’ dimes? In short – no one – that’s who.
When you are the top law justice official in the area, little things like using public resources to keep yourself in power is not a risky endeavor. Much like Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos, who used government resources to plaster his name all over Neighborhood Watch signs earlier this year without repercussion, LaWall knows that southern Arizona is indeed lawless for some.
When those entrusted with enforcing the law decide to ignore the laws – campaign or otherwise – there can be no expectation that others should obey them. Yet, in Pima County under the current regime, it is well-known that only poor folk pay. In the eighth poorest metropolitan area in the country, you can be sure – thanks to LaWall and Nanos – that the poor souls, who write hot checks to feed their families, will pay to the fullest extent the law will allow while the corrupt powers-that-be do what they do without consequence.
In 2008, the Federal Reserve reported that industry observers “widely predict that traditional paper processing will be phased out over the next few years.” Residents want to know how soon pubic corruption will be phased out in Pima County.