Kudos to Journal Inquirer Editorial Page Editor Keith Burris who has provided us with a textbook lesson into Politics 101.  This is a must read for taxpayers who are tired of political influence peddling and then being presented with the bill to bankroll government quid-pro-quo politics and corruption.  Keep this editorial circulating….    Susan Kniep, President, FCTO

A Journal Inquirer Editorial

January 2, 2004

 

Some years ago, when he was running for president, Gary Hart gave a speech in which he said that American politics was being "Europeanized." To the utter and deepening bafflement of the media, he explained what he meant. Hart said a deep corruption and cynicism had settled into our politics. It had become OK for people in politics to get rich from it, and the public now accepted such behavior as unexceptional and unsurprising. It may not have been true then, but it is true today. Call it "the culture of corruption."  It infects our national politics and it infects state politics in virtually every state; very obviously, at the moment, in Connecticut.  But in Connecticut, the problem is deeper and broader than Gov. John G. Rowland.  Indeed, Rowland must be wondering, "Why me?" "What have I done," he must ask himself in the dead of night, "that is so different?"  And, in a sense, this is a fair question.  What Rowland has done, the thing that has landed him on political death row and in very hot legal water, is that he took money, goods, and favors from people who did business with the state, sought contracts from the state, and worked for the state.   His "friends" were also his benefactors and the state was their benefactor. That’s a pattern of corruption. But it’s a pattern that Rowland did not invent. He simply took it to the extreme.  For years it has been said around the Capitol that the Tomasso family had the place "wired." They could get any contract they wanted from any administration.  Now, if this is true, Rowland was not the first guy to accept gifts from parties doing business with the state, including the Tomassos.  Does anyone seriously doubt this?  The culture of corruption arises from three realities: First, there is a political class. There are people who stay around politics after office and expect to make a living at politics -- a good living -- after office.  Hence, ex-state officials become lobbyists.  Ex-legislators become state officials.  Lobbyists make policy and law.  Connecticut government is a very small closed circle and everyone in it expects to eat, dress, and vacation well.  That’s the second reality: a sense of entitlement.  Rowland took this to a higher level too. But people who make their living at politics tell themselves that they are underpaid for what they do. Their skills are undercompensated and, after all, they have given their lives to public service.
Rowland turned down a raise for political reasons -- a raise he needed to pay his bills. After turning down the raise, he felt he could not live in the style to which he felt entitled, so his "friends" and associates started picking up tabs for everything from shirts to shots.   But there would have been no friends to do so if a whole class of people had not been making their living from the bounty of state government.  The third reality is that we, the citizens, allow this to go on. We allow a political class to exist; to prosper; and to rip off our state.  How does this actually work?  Well, take Adriaen’s Landing.   A project like that not only takes engineers, but "consultants."  Enter the lobbyists, and fixers, and rainmakers.  Two of our state’s leading rainmakers are William DiBella and Thomas Ritter.  One ran the state Senate once upon a time and one was speaker of the House.  Both men sell access, or the perception of it.  They don’t exactly lobby.  They don’t exactly practice law.  They advise.   They steer.  They get you in the door.  How do you regulate that?  It’s not illegal.  It is not even legally unethical.  But it is part of politics for profit, and maybe just a slightly more subtle form of doing business than the way business is done in Africa or the Middle East.  It’s just a guess, but it is an educated one: If it costs $100 million to do that project, $10 to $15 million will be soaked up by the political class in one form or another.  Things are no different at the national level.  What was Enron but part of a culture of corruption?  Give us your contracts, guys. We’re a top-notch company. (And nobody ever bothered to check out how they did business.) "Kenny Baby" will take care of you later, and maybe help you in little ways now.   This is how it works.  Someone buys the officeholder dinner.  Then somebody gives him a trip. Someone else picks up the theater tickets.  And he has a kid who needs help with tuition.  Pretty soon he doesn’t know the price of his suits, the bourbon in his cabinet, or the watch on his arm -- because he didn’t buy any of it.  And he feels he deserves it. 
And there isn’t a person who did buy any of that sort of stuff for John Rowland who did not have a special interest and a conflict of interest. Every single one of them makes a living at politics.  The aides who bought and built things for the governor?  Not only did they owe him their jobs, but they were, all of them, future rainmakers and lobbyists. Someday, if they were lucky, they’d be selling access to a guy for whom they done a favor.  Mostly, in the culture of corruption, the corruption remains legal. The payoff comes later -- when the guy goes into business for himself. When he starts to sell access or the perception of it.  Do you think Dick Cheney was hired to be CEO of Halliburton because he knew construction and engineering?  It was because he knew government.  The company was in Texas. Cheney lived and worked, mostly, in Washington. As a former White House chief of staff, congressman, and Defense secretary, who better than Cheney to open doors and win contracts in the halls of power?  Did he do this crudely?  Or even overtly? 
Heavens, no. At that level you don’t even have to make many phone calls. Your presence alone makes it rain.  Cheney cashed in, to the tune of a couple hundred million.  It was totally legal.  And if you doubt that his profit was part of our political corrosion, consider this: Halliburton is the leading contractor in the reconstruction of Iraq.  Did you hear about the congressmen from Wisconsin?  The White House needed his vote on a bill a few days back, but he was retiring. Bush operatives made it clear that his son, a candidate for his House seat, would get considerable campaign dollars steered his way if the old man went along. If not, another candidate might get the money. Such hardball tactics are hardly new, but the availability of money, the shamelessness of those engaged in such tactics, and the sense of entitlement of so many political professionals contribute to the culture of corruption.  Look at Howard Dean’s decision to forgo federal campaign money and therefore spending limits. That cost him nothing politically.  Just as it cost George W. Bush nothing four years ago.  Cheney’s cashing in cost him nothing.  And Rowland’s pattern of surreptitiously padding his income cost him nothing politically -- until his aides started to get prosecuted and the scandals started to unfold under the watchful eye of the feds.  If Rowland had waited until he was out of office to cash in, he’d be on his way to a Cabinet post or the U.S. Senate today.  His error, in part, was cashing his IOUs before they matured, before he left office. (His error was also one of degree and self-knowledge.)  Perhaps specific reforms are called for now.  One good reform might be to give legislators full-time salaries and prohibit them from taking any other remuneration, of any kind.  But the rules on giving and taking gifts in Connecticut are not negligible now.  The great reform needed is one of attitude.   Once upon a time this nation embraced the notion of citizen politicians: You came from your profession for a few years and you went back to it. You served a time in office carved out of your real life and career. You sacrificed to serve. You didn’t expect to make a killing at politics. Until politicians pay a political price for cashing in and expecting to make a good living from politics once out of office, a few of them will continue to cash in while still holding office.