A Nation Still Adrift: The Case of Senator Gloria Scott

For more than two years since the government of President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf was seated, the Executive, the Legislative, and the Judiciary branches of government have taken turns to make public spectacles of themselves. And because having all three branches of the government in the hands of all-rooky castes is a rare occurrence in statecraft, some of the comical behaviors we have witnessed were not entirely unexpected.

Doubtless, many of us have enjoyed a laugh or two at the expense of either the know-all Executive, the unjust Judiciary, or the pandering Legislature; but unless we find a way to put an end to the comedy of errors, the joke will be on the rest of us for being spectators at the game of democracy. This is most unfortunate because all this is happening in a government that was forged from the crucible of 14 years of civil war.

The Liberian Legislature, which is currently marred in charges of criminal mischief, once made a capital case out of what appeared to have been a procedure issue involving a fellow lawmaker. In that regard, and as an ordinary citizen, I'll start with what is already in the public domain in order to find my own excuse for delving into the inner workings of our Congress. I had no inkling what was brewing in the Senate until I read the news report that Maryland County Senator Gloria Musu Scott had been suspended by the Senate from the chairmanship of the Senate's Committee on the Executive.

I was curious because the news came on the heels of a Legislative report card (issued yearly by a human rights group) in which Senator Scott fared quite well in all of the key categories of good lawmaking habits. I expected, however, to read Senator Scott's own response to the action taken against her by her colleagues. But when that didn't happen for close to a week, I decided to call her. Even then, she appeared unwilling to discuss the issue in some details. She said she still harbored hope that the issue would be resolved without public exchange of accusations. I had learned from news accounts that the Senate was steaming mad at Senator Scott for a) not delivering to the President a bill the Senate originated and passed and b) for copying the President with a letter she wrote to her Senate colleagues seeking their approval for a planned trip abroad.

What's coming to light, however, is that the Senate may have Senator Scott to thank for slowing down a bad bill that was speeding toward the Executive Mansion for a promised veto. The President would have been handed a golden opportunity credibly to profess moral rectitude in the face of naked Legislative self-enrichment binge.

However, it appears that the real issue lay not with the messenger (Senator Scott), but rather with the message (the Legislative Financial Autonomy bill). The Legislature which did not pass a single bill during its then current schedule managed to put together a package through which it sought separation from most of the standards of financial accountability that apply to all the other institutions of the government. Senator Scott may have breached some legislative protocol, but it appears that this granddaughter of renowned Paramount Chief Musu (male Grebo name) of Maryland County knows a bad bill when she sees one. The Senate that was huffing and puffing to cripple Senator Scott did not dwell on any demerits of the reasoning that went into her decision to let the Speaker of the House of Representatives catch up with the bill before it reached the President's desk.

They, instead, focused on the narrow issue of how and why “cc” to the President appeared at the bottom of a letter Senator Scott addressed to the Senate on a personal issue. Had the bill died (In fact, constitutionally, it never lived!), the cause of death might be credibly blamed on the terminal condition of being conceived and delivered solely by one chamber in a bi-bicameral body. That, of course, is a legislative no-no. Also, Attorney General Frances Johnson Morris had said that the single-parenthood of the bill made it unconstitutional.

The House which was left out of whatever debate that went into the creation of the bill could not be expected to side wholly with the Senate whose unilateral and seemingly surreptitious push had landed the package in public scorn. Senator Scott had said she would stand her ground of not making any public comments on the issue of the bill until she had exhausted every option to have the matter resolved in chamber.

But that was before a Grebo bodio (elder) mounted a hill back home in the interior part of Maryland County in search of a digital signal. Once the bodio got Senator Scott on the phone, he simply asked what the heck was going on in Monrovia. (In fact the news back home was that Senator Scott had been kicked out of the Senate.) Now Senator Scott reasoned that before another bodio mounted another hill to make another call, she would mount the podium to inform the nation and her constituency that she would not compromise her principles. She did just that on Wednesday morning, May 16, 2007, when she told a press conference that she needed to explain her reasons for at first trying to keep the issue from the public.

She told her Grebo audience that lawmaking, like rice farming, was rife with dangers -- the danger of being misunderstood, the danger of being undermined, etc. She said that rice farmers faced the same dangers in the form of falling trees, fire, thorns, prickles, and snakes during the farming season. So she would endure her share of legislative hazards in the hope of a good harvest at the end of the season. (She didn't say there were snakes in the Legislature, though.) Senator Scott has since faced her Senate colleagues and owned up to some procedural errors.

But the Senate does not appear to be in any rush to rescue the bill Senator Scott had the good judgment to consider for further deliberation. A new season has begun in Greboland and in the land of politics. Grebo farmers will put up with snakes, thorns, fires, etc.; and conscientious lawmakers like Senator Scott will confront perils such as bribery, theft, lies, neglect of legislative duties, etc. (Thank God no snakes!)

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Copyright © Tarty Teh 2008 April 25, 2008, Monrovia, Liberia Contact Tarty Teh at: e-Mail: TartyTeh@aol.com Phone and text: (231) 05-653-56