Making Lobbyists Wear Badges: The New Holocaust?
In an effort to tweak its ethics rules following a spate of corruption, the Massachusetts House is considering among other things a requirement that lobbyists wear ID badges in the statehouse if they're "seeking access to House members or staff." This doesn't seem controversial. Then again, maybe it's the Holocaust?
State Democratic Rep. John Binienda, he was the one who somehow managed to bring the Holocaust into the debate earlier this week. His argument went like this: You know who else forced certain people to wear IDs? Hitler.
"The idea of the badge by lobbyists to me, I kind of find that revolting," Rep. John Binienda (D-Worcester), chairman of the House Rules Committee, told the News Service in a phone interview. "Hitler during the concentration camps tattooed all of the Jewish people so he would know who was Jew and who wasn't and that's something that I just don't go along with."
A big round of applause for John Binenda, everyone. Unfortunately, for comedy's sake, he's already apologized, instead of doubling down on this catastrophe of an analogy. "No comparison can be made," he said, "between the Nazi regime and a rules proposal made by members in good faith." That's going a bit overboard, now. Let's not rule out any comparison. What if lobbyists, say, had to fill out another basic disclosure form? That would be some serious Hitler shit.
