Could Obama end centuries of corruption?
Ethics proposals sound good, but history not on his side
Can it ever be fixed? Barack Obama has been a champion of improving government ethics at both the state and federal level, but he faces a long history of improbity among our elected officials.
Benjamin Fletcher, governor of New York from 1692 to 1698, took protection money from pirates, stole from the public funds and cheated on customs duties. "To recount all his arts of squeezing money both out of the public and private purses would make a volume instead of a letter," wrote one of Fletcher's critics.
According to the Reader's Companion to American History, "systematic smuggling, graft, extortion and bribery in the colonies cost the British Treasury 700,000 pounds a year. Attempts were made from time to time to clean things up, but defiant juries and mercenary judges -- one of whom remarked 'that in his opinion the Nicetyes of the law ought not to be observed' -- invariably got in the way."
As Dennis Frank Thompson reports in his book, Ethics in Congress: From Individual to Institutional Corruption, Sen. Daniel Webster was on a retainer from the Bank of the United States, and bribing members of Congress was common until a law against it was enacted in 1853.
Political machines in the late 1800s specialized in bribery, extortion, electoral fraud, particularly at the state and civic levels.
Richard M. Nixon received huge illegal campaign donations from corporations and individuals. The Senate and House enacted ethics codes, and the 1978 Ethics in Government Act required detailed financial disclosure for those elected and appointed to federal office.
Still the dishonesty continued.
There was Koreagate (congressmen getting money and gifts from the South Korean government) and Abscam (a scandal involving a phony sheik) and Wedtech (a military contractor bribing congressmen and other officials). Ronald Reagan's attorney general, Edwin Meese, was investigated twice by the U.S. office of the independent counsel following accusations of corruption. No charges were taken to the grand jury, but allegations of ethical violations and his involvement in the Iran-contra affair dogged Meese all during his career in the Reagan administration.
The nudge-nudge, wink-wink behavior between our representatives, lobbyists and interest groups continues to this day: Recall the careers of former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, California Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham and convicted lobbyist extraordinaire Jack Abramoff.
As Obama noted rightly in a speech last month: "It's an entire culture in Washington -- some of it legal, some of it not -- that allows this to happen."
As a consequence of the huge lobbying enterprise in Washington, Obama says, "morally offensive laws and decisions" get made. No question about that. Think of the Bridge to Nowhere in Alaska. Or the corruption by Education Department officials in connection with the student loan industry and the no-bid contracts awarded to Halliburton -- Vice President Dick Cheney's former company -- in Iraq.
Obama says he wants to "clean up both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue" and has offered several ethics reforms if he becomes president:
• • People who work for his administration and leave will be prevented from becoming lobbyists during his term in office.
• • Abuse of no-bid contracts will end.
• • Gifts from lobbyists will be banned.
• • Qualified people, not cronies for White House positions, will be hired.
• • Government will be made more transparent -- for example, by using the Internet to publicize bills to be signed by the president.
Sarah Dufendach, chief of legislative affairs for Common Cause, a government ethics watchdog, notes Obama's effort to appoint an independent ethics commission for the Senate -- an effort that failed. He promoted amendments and legislation to ban gifts and meals from lobbyists, end subsidized travel on corporate jets, apply more transparency to make it easier to find out who sponsored earmarks, etc.
Dufendach says publicly funded election campaigns would end most of politicians' questionable ethics. She strongly supports the nonpartisan Fair Elections Now Act co-sponsored by Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) to reform campaign financing.
Yes, it is a good start (especially when one observes how often Obama is forced to step off the campaign trail to attend fund-raisers). Obama's ethics proposals are praiseworthy. But I guess I've lived in scandal-ridden Illinois for too long -- I think there are some in Congress who don't really have an appetite for righteousness. I guess I am what Obama calls a cynic, but I laud his efforts. If at first you don't succeed...