"Constituent Services" Can Be Another Term for Quid Pro Quo

Today’s New York Times has an article that focuses on John McCain’s dealings with a big Arizona developer, Donald Diamond.

There are two issues here that I would like to bring up. First, the ultimate defense, which McCain’s campaign employs: helping a constituent. McCain “had done nothing for Mr. Diamond that he would not do for any other Arizona citizen.”

Diamond is not any other constituent. He traveled with McCain during the early primaries in 2000, and is on the campaign trail again this year. He is chair of McCain’s finance committee. He has given McCain $55,000 in contributions, and has raised more than $250,000 for him this year.

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McCain didn’t help him with a social security problem or the like. He helped him get land deals that instantly made Diamond millions of dollars.

When a leader in campaign finance reform, and someone who has vowed to avoid even the appearance of dispensing an official favor for a donor, pulls out this ultimate defense, it tells all politicians that it’s something they too can use to misrepresent the dispensing of favors to donors.

McCain is hardly the only person to do this, but more than anyone else – as someone whose career nearly ended long ago due to his dispensing favors to a donor involved in the savings bank debacle – what he says is watched by those concerned about these issues.

This can be a problem at any level of government. Politicians have a duty to help their constituents, but there are no clear limits or definitions regarding what is a constituent service and what is special consideration given to contributors (that is, quid pro quo services). This is an area that needs to be discussed openly, with guidelines if not laws to help politicians and the public navigate this relatively hidden area of government activity.

Second, the story of McCain’s dealings with Diamond shows how a U.S. Senator and presidential candidate can use his name and influence in the local government arena, to the harm of others who do not have his favor (causing others to seek out the favor of equivalently powerful politicians).

McCain sent a letter of reference to the City Manager of Seaside, California, which had an effect on Diamond’s bid for land on which to build a large golf resort. “The folks ... were sort of, like, star struck: ‘God, these people really know some high-up people,’”a former Seaside official is quoted as saying.

Should U.S. Senators be involved with local government matters, especially outside their state? And in their state, should they take sides in local government developments or regarding local government issues? Does the idea of constituent services extend to this?