Yesterday I ran across a story on Michelle Malkin’s website concerning a corruption sting in New Jersey. Eleven state and local officials are accused of taking bribes in return for steering government business to certain clients. After reading it I felt compelled to comment (it’s comment #28 if you care to read that far.)
This story troubles me in two respects.
First of all, because one of the accused, Jonathan Soto, is a “former GOP Passaic…City Councilman”, it becomes a “bipartisan” scandal in the eyes of the media, despite many of the defendants being Democrats. It’ll be looked at as another example where the Republican Party is the so-called party of corruption.
Secondly, and much more importantly, this reveals the sad fact that each office seems to have its “price” – a few thousand for a school board member, closer to five figures for an Assemblyman or City Councilman, and $30-50k for a mayor. Being in the “real” work world, I know what it takes for me to clear that kind of cash yet these guys and the bribery they were allegedly taking are likely just the tip of the iceberg as far as corruption is concerned in that state. And I shudder to think about the size and scale of it on a federal level.
As well-meaning as New Jersey’s Governor Corzine might be, all the ethics laws that can be written are only treating the symptoms and not the disease. Instead of being public servants, these men have turned the definition on its head; wishing the public serve them by creating a trough of public funds that they can use their influence to allow their favored friends to dip into.
To truly cure the disease, the bottomless pit of public funds needs to be filled in somehow. Even the lowly office of school board has become a source of big money, and where you have easy money, you have scoundrels who want to get their hands on it rather than honestly working to attain it.
By many accounts, New Jersey is a state where corruption and graft are second nature; however, I can’t say I’m an expert on their state or their politics. I think in my blogging existence I’ve only mentioned their politics once when they had the last election for Governor in 2005. And I’ve visited there only one time, made it no farther north than Brick Township and Lakewood.
Regardless, the article made me think about how money has gotten so pervasive in politics and also how getting it in the most dubious of ways seems to have become the goal of many a politician. You may recall that one argument made for passage of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform was that all the campaign money makes politicians dishonest. In the New Jersey case though and in so many others (both Congressman William Jefferson and his former cohort Duke Cunningham are shining examples of this) the money that corrupted them was the money they were placed in charge of by being elected to Congress. Unfortunately not enough Republicans and few if any Democrats seem to want to get at that particular cause of corruption; most turn a blind eye to it as they pass larger and larger, more pork-laden budgets.
Another thing that depresses me is that the New Jersey corruption reached all the way down to a school board. That’s the real grassroots of the political world, the place where many first come into elected office. Some use that office as a springboard to a city council seat or Delegate post, while others simply serve because they care about the welfare of local children and seek no higher office. Even so, school districts now control huge sums of money – much of it coming from federal and state sources. These men likely professed their service to the local children on the one hand while using the other to direct the flow of money to their favored friends.
One irony of this is while Michelle was wrapping up this article, I was working the Wicomico County Republican Party booth at Salisbury’s RiverFest (more on that later today.) Because Wicomico County has an appointed school board, the office I occupy of Central Committeeman is the lowest of the low on the elected office totem pole, much like the school board in New Jersey. Likely it’s the only elected position I’ll ever take since I don’t have a great desire to work and play with others in a legislative body someplace, nor do I plan on making elected office a lifetime avocation.
But the article she wrote is another example of elected officials violating the public trust and making all of the rest of us – the 99% of us who are honest and want to do what’s right for those who elected us – look bad and maintains a public perception that we’re all crooks. However, if we can take some of the money out of the equation, the shysters and others who simply seek to make their fortunes through the world of politics may have to find another more dishonest profession.
