Activism Against "wasteful Government Spending"
In 1983, Zeigler filed a successful legal action against what he termed "illegal extra paychecks" to over 400 political officials. A year-long court battle ended in a victory at the Alabama Supreme Court and return of the money to state coffers.
In 1984, he challenged paying legislators full pay and expenses during a 13-day Christmas holiday break. He won a circuit court injunction blocking the "holiday pay" but was later reversed by the state supreme court.
In 1985, Zeigler and Montgomery businessman Malcolm Brassell formed The Taxpayers Defense Fund (later called Taxpayers Defense Force), a legal action group. It contested government spending decisions for 20 years.
In 1985, Zeigler filed suit to stop public officials from disguising state cars by purchasing private license plates called "cover tags." The suit was settled by executive order of the governor outlawing cover tags.
In 1985, Zeigler filed suit and successfully blocked political officials from entering the state retirement system. In 1988 and 1999, Zeigler chaired the vote no campaign on statewide referendums to allow political officials to get into the State Retirement System. The proposed constitutional amendments were defeated both times.
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Famous quotes containing the words wasteful, government and/or spending:
““Only the wasteful virtues earn the sun....”
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—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“There are obvious places in which government can narrow the chasm between haves and have-nots. One is the public schools, which have been seen as the great leveler, the authentic melting pot. That, today, is nonsense. In his scathing study of the nation’s public school system entitled “Savage Inequalities,” Jonathan Kozol made manifest the truth: that we have a system that discriminates against the poor in everything from class size to curriculum.”
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)
“Chance is the one thing you can’t buy.... You have to pay for it and you have to pay for it with your life, spending a lot of time, you pay for it with time, not the wasting of time but the spending of time.”
—Robert Doisneau (b. 1912)