Commentary –

Corruption? Here?

By William A. Collins

Contracts are,

A soothing balm;

You need only,

Grease my palm.

Connecticut is a pretty straight-laced place. Notwithstanding our prisons bulging with poor folk, we’re remarkably law-abiding. Our politicians may tax us too much, but we’ve never had the sense that it was going into their pockets.

Until lately. The mayors of Bridgeport and Waterbury have just been convicted of using their exalted offices for personal profit. OK, so we’re accustomed to that in Waterbury. Another former mayor there just finished his sentence. But every state has a black sheep. Bridgeport seems more of a gray sheep – suspected, perhaps, but never heretofore proven. Anyway, those two gritty cities don’t truly represent us. They’re not the real Connecticut.

That was a common and comforting thought, until the FBI lately landed in the governor’s office. That IS the real Connecticut. We elected him. By a landslide. Just like the mayors of Bridgeport and Waterbury. That makes it embarrassing for all Nutmeggers as the web of special privilege, non-bid contracts, economic development awards, inside stock deals, and sweetheart funding starts to unravel.

Naturally such transactions are conducted with a certain panache at the state level. No hard currency changes hands. No expensive suits arrive by UPS or volunteer landscapers show up at the door. Well, yes, vacation homes do get used for free, and campaign contributions do swell, but it’s all done with class. And if a lot of personal expenses show up on Republican Party credit cards, well, the GOP has plenty in the bank to cover the bill.

Still, all this is rather new to our Land of Steady Habits. Previous administrations survived untainted. Lowell Weicker, Bill O’Neill, Ella Grasso, and Tom Meskill may not have been terrific governors either, but each seemed scrupulously honest. Appointees felt more constrained by personal ethics, thus leading them to mostly avoid hanky-panky with friends and contributors. That tradition of rectitude has now crumbled.

Not to say that in Connecticut wealth doesn’t normally drive public policy. It surely does, but that’s perfectly legal. Such legalized corruption is conducted daily by way of campaign contributions, lobbying, and a remunerative job after one leaves public service. Without this grand tradition, our General Assembly oft times would hardly know what to do. But the FBI does not sniff out legislation that’s passed merely at the suggestion of contributors or lobbyists.

Nonetheless it is this legal corruption that’s our bigger problem. After all, how much can a mayor steal? Or how disastrous is it if one state contractor gets the inside track over another? Sure, if he does a crummy job we all suffer, but that’s still small potatoes compared to the devastation that a suborned legislature can wreak. Tens of thousands of lives are dramatically affected by deregulating electricity or not, raising the minimum wage, ending or restoring welfare, expanding or shrinking health insurance, banning guns, or reducing mandatory sentences. That’s the big stuff, and these decisions are seriously influenced by money and power.

Worse corruption yet exists in Washington. Unfortunately again, no G-men will investigate. And if Hartford is beleaguered by ethical lapses, D.C. is overrun. But at least there the president knows exactly what he’s doing. Indeed he was elected to do it. Only hard-charging cynics could possibly promote tax cuts for the rich as “economic development,” education cuts as “Leave No Child Behind”®, and clear cutting forests as a fire-prevention technique. For better or worse, elections are the single cure for all that.

Here at home, luckily, the FBI can help, though we should each be doing our assigned job at the polls as well. And keep in mind that in the FBI promotions go to those who bring down politicians for offenses no matter how small. It’s thus up to us alone to judge which political acts are sufficient cause for firing the incumbent. That’s democracy.

Columnist William A. Collins is a former state representative and a former mayor of Norwalk, Connecticut.