When he loaned disgraced Democratic politician Ron Sailor $80,000 last year, lobbyist Willie Green says, he didn't expect to get Sailor's support in a critical House vote three weeks later. All he expected was to be repaid $120,000 within five days.

Either way, Green would be a winner. If Sailor voted to repeal a ban on payday lending, Green helped himself as an owner of payday stores and helped the payday lending industry for which he lobbied. If Sailor met the terms of the loan, Green would earn a 50 percent return in less than a week. (That's an APR of 3,600 —- apparently Green learned quickly from his payday pals.)

In the end, Green never got paid back. Not in money, anyway. But he did get Sailor's support on the payday lending bill. Sailor has since admitted to money laundering, resigned his House seat and is cooperating with federal prosecutors. (A federal sting had also snagged Sailor agreeing to launder $300,000 from a purported drug dealer in exchange for a hefty fee.)

It was always clear that an awful lot of money was at stake in the payday lending fight. When the General Assembly denounced payday lending as loan sharking and banned it in 2004, the industry saw tens of millions of dollars in profits evaporate overnight. The lenders then launched an aggressive campaign to roll back the Georgia law, finding a champion in House Rules Chairman Earl Ehrhart (R-Powder Springs).

Touting a free-market philosophy, Ehrhart waged a bare-knuckles street fight to revive payday lending, fighting opposition from every leading consumer group and from the state's Republican insurance commissioner, John Oxendine. But in the end, wisdom and decency prevailed and the bill died in a late-night tie vote of 84-84.

Sailor's case suggests that at least one of those 84 votes for repealing the payday lending ban was influenced by factors other than ideology or the best interests of his constituents. For the sake of Georgia's reputation and that of its elected leaders, let's hope the stain of corruption ended there.