Butt Out, John Ford! What if the judge in one of the several current high-profile cases involving police misconduct was a relative of one of the accused — or of one of the victims? What if the mediator in a divorce case was the paramour of one of the contesting parties? What, for that matter, if the umpire in a baseball game was part-owner of one of the contending teams? Would anybody trust the judgment that came out of such a proceeding? Would anybody even allow such a compromised scenario to get under way? Of course not. Yet that’s exactly the situation that confronts us as State Senator John Ford — intricately involved, as are several members of his family, in a day-care operation — prepares to hold “hearings” on day-care reform legislation as chairman of the Senate General Welfare, Health, and Human Resources Committee. Moreover, Ford has already served notice concerning several reform bills that have been submitted in recent weeks. “All of these bills will be in my committee,” pointed out Ford. “I don’t want anybody to be under any illusion that we’re just going to pass out legislation that doesn’t make sense.” In particular, Ford said he would oppose proposals in a bill co-sponsored by Memphis State Rep. Carol Chumney and State Senator Roy Herron of Dresden that would (1) provide for annual financial audits of child care centers receiving $50,000 or more a year from the state and (2) block conflicts of interest by day-care brokers. It takes no wizard to see why Ford, whose involvement is with one of the day-care operations which have come under serious question, should want to avoid this kind of scrutiny and these kinds of safeguards. And we have enough respect for the senator’s experience and wiliness to know that he will pull out all the stops (and if anybody knows where all the stops are, Ford surely does!) to prevent such overdue legislation from taking place. Corruption in general (a counterfeiting ring, yet!) and sweetheart deals in particular have been convincingly demonstrated to be part of the day-care industry as it currently exists. And there is no doubt a relationship between the unchecked abuses of this largely unsupervised system and the horrific child deaths that have occurred so frequently because of several centers’ unforgivably careless monitoring of their facilities and their transportation vans. We are not suggesting that John Ford or any member of his family has been a party, knowingly, to any of the highly publicized circumstances that have given the day care industry a bad name and unsettled out of their wits those working parents who have no recourse than to patronize state-subsidized facilities. But we do think the senator is so clearly an interested party to the issue that he should recuse himself from judgment over it. This is especially true in that his published remarks are bald and flagrant in what they suggest about his obstructionist attitude. Recuse yourself, John Ford. And let someone else conduct your committee’s hearings. It’s a no-brainer, even for you!