By John Brummett

That legislative committee held its afternoon’s inquiry into recent incidents in the state prisons — a bold escape, an inmate’s near-death from stunning neglect — and, predictably, it didn’t amount to much.

Its best moment was the introduction of a novel Republican idea that members of the state Correction Board ought to do more than acquiesce to whatever the prison management staff says.

That would merely remake the whole concept of state government.

The statewide tradition is that board and commission members get appointed as political rewards from the governor. Then they learn everything they know about their agencies from the top management of those agencies, which smartly ingratiates itself with the new board members.

Then the board members assemble regularly to collect per-diem expenses, receive one-sided reports from the friendly management staff and make perfunctory approvals of whatever the management seeks. In the prison board’s case, members get flown to the meeting on the prison plane, unless Attorney General Dustin McDaniel has it.

A board member asking too many public questions gets cast as a troublemaker, not a team player, and his effectiveness is thereby impaired. Over the years it’s been more advisable for skeptical board members to appear to go along in public and, in private, to tip reporters or columnists of seeming misdeeds to try to get a message out through the vital public prints.

Take the University of Central Arkansas, for example. The board adored the president, Lu Hardin, for his unctuous manner and superficial record of stirring success. But someone with a made-up name sent me an e-mail the day the board secretly advanced him a bonus about which he then lied.

In time the house of cards came down. Boy, did it. Now Lu will lead a small “Christian” college in West Palm Beach, a “Bob Jones University on the beach,” one legislator told me, and a job his pal Mike Huckabee surely helped him land.

You know what they say: Religious college is the last refuge of the academic scoundrel.

Anyway, it was this reticent board acquiescence at the prisons that earned the critical attention of three young Republican representatives — Davy Carter of Cabot, John Burris of Harrison and Jonathan Dismang of Beebe. It then got joined by a not-so-young and ever-fiery Republican senator, Kim Hendren of Gravette, who, by the way, indicated to me he’s still kind of running for the U. S. Senate because, he said as he grinned, “Don’t you think we need a little excitement?”

The youngsters had reviewed Correction Board minutes and found not a word of discussion about these incidents.

Larry Norris, the good ol’ boy prison director, explained that he reported each of them to board members individually by phone or e-mail. But the young Republicans wondered if it amounted to true and worthy public service simply to take the director’s word for serious issues. Carter wondered why we even had board members.

This would be a new state government, indeed, if board members started declining to take the staff’s word for everything and actually discussed public matters in public.

Rep. Steve Harrelson of Texarkana, a popular and progressive blogger running hard for the state Senate, wants to refer the prison episodes to further special legislative investigation. He leans perhaps to the Joint Performance Review Committee, which exists for this very kind of agency assessment and has subpoena authority.

But it occurred to him — or he was advised — that he couldn’t fashion that referral except through formal action by the full Legislative Council, which won’t meet until August.

So Harrelson was left to hold forth for reporters and cameras in the hallway, where he said he was pleased but not satisfied with the prison response and that the prison actually ought to welcome an outside investigation. Later he was on the phone to the National Conference of State Legislatures seeking expert guidance and resources on such investigations.

I looked at the membership of Joint Performance Review and concluded that expert guidance will be essential.

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John Brummett is a columnist for the Arkansas News Bureau in Little Rock. His e-mail address is jbrummett@arkansasnews.com; his telephone number is (501) 374-0699.