A Rotten Crop of Oranges in Tamarac, Florida
I talk a lot about poor ethics environments, probably the single most
important element in unethical conduct. But since loyalty is the
strongest force in such environments, a great deal of work is done to
hide the existence of poor ethics environments. After unethical conduct
is discovered, it is rare for anyone to set out just how bad things
were.<br>
<br>
But sometimes things are so bad, it becomes clear that there aren't
just a couple of bad apples, but a whole bad crop. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamarac,_Fl" target="”_blank”">Tamarac, Florida</a>,
a city of 60,000 in Broward County (home of Ft. Lauderdale) is such a
place. In fact, southern Florida itself seems to have been one big
rotten crop of oranges, at least during the boom years.<br>
<br>
According to <a href="http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2011-03-09/news/fl-corrupt-tamarac-may…; target="”_blank”">Michael
Mayo's column in yesterday's <i>Sun-Sentinel</i></a>, four out of five Tamarac
commissioners from the crop of 2006 have been arrested. In just the
past year, three Tamarac politicians have been arrested. Yesterday it
was the turn of the mayor, on counts of unlawful compensation, bribery,
and official misconduct (the warrant and affidavit to arrest are
attached; see below).<br>
<br>
She is accused of having indirectly taken money from a developer to
fund attacks on her campaign opponents, and then very soon after voting
on a matter involving the developer. The same developer was implicated
in the arrests of the three other Tamarac politicians arrested in the
past year.<br>
<br>
<b>Getting Around Government Ethics Laws</b><br>
Mayo calls the scheme, which involved a 527 political committee,
"convoluted," but this is what people do to get around the laws. No,
let me phrase this more accurately: This is what lawyers do to
get around the laws. That is, their special kind of cleverness is required to do things that may be legal on their face,
but are clearly unethical.<br>
<br>
As is so often said, laws cannot stop unethical conduct, only make unethical conduct
more complex, providing more work to clever attorneys. What is less
important about this is that it is hard to enforce laws. What is more
important is that officials are less likely to accidentally participate
in unethical conduct, and those who do things like this clearly have
made a serious effort to help themselves at the expense of the public.
They may plead non-illegality, but everyone knows the official and her colleagues were
scheming something awful.<br>
<br>
It's not worth going into the details. You can read them in two columns
of Bob Norman's Pulp, <a href="http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/pulp/2011/03/beth_talabisco_arrest_ch…; target="”_blank”">yesterday</a>
and <a href="http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/pulp/2011/03/ilene_lieberman_witness_…; target="”_blank”">today</a>,
and in <a href="http://www.browardbeat.com/inside-talabiscos-dirty-deal-six-democratic-…; target="”_blank”">Buddy
Nevins' Broward Beat column</a>, as well as in the attached affidavit
to arrest.<br>
<br>
<b>The Players</b><br>
But it is worth listing the people involved in this relatively small
matter, recognizing that when officials are arrested for one such
matter, it is usually only the tip of the iceberg. Rarely does anyone put together
one scheme like this, and then call it a day.<br>
<br>
Besides the father-and-son developers, there is a county commissioner
who mentored the mayor, a campaign manager who was hired last year by
the county commissioner, two lobbyists, one of them a prominent
financial figure in national campaigns, another local mayor, a
political firm that produced attack mailers, two development
subcontractors who helped hide the source of the funds, a 527 political
committee created to do the dirty work, and a party "operative" who
helped put the 527 committee together.<br>
<br>
These schemes are not the work of lone wolves. Many people are
involved, and any one of them could have stopped the whole thing. But
this all occurred in 2006, and back then no one thought they would be
caught. And why else would someone think of putting a wrench in the
works?<br>
<br>
<b>The Conflict</b><br>
According to the affidavit, the county commissioner told the
mayor-elect (still a city commissioner) that she had a voting conflict
because the developers had made such a large contribution to the 527
committee, and there was a vote on their project eight days after the
election. The mayor-elect said that she was still going to vote
"because she had made a commitment."<br>
<br>
And there's the rub. Yes, she did have a commitment. The problem is
that she had two commitments, and they were in conflict. But the only
commitment she recognized was the one to the people who had given her
money, not to the people who had elected her as city commissioner and
as mayor. All she had to do was recognize that she had these two
commitments, agree with the county commissioner, and recuse herself
from the vote due to the conflict between her commitments.<br>
<br>
In short, if you promise to vote because someone gives you money, you
have a choice whom to betray, the contributor or the public. If you
choose to betray the public, you are acting in your self-interest. If you
choose to betray the contributor, you'll have two angry people from whom you
have fraudulently taken money. Whichever you choose, you have to accept
the fact that you betrayed someone's trust in you. That's the nature of
a conflict.<br>
<br>
<b>What Lawyers Could Do</b><br>
The mayor's lawyer, of course, has said about this situation, "When and
if this case goes to trial, we will prove that the mayor received
no illegal compensation whatsoever." Screw the public. All that matters
is the law.<br>
<br>
A lot of the people involved in this scheme were lawyers. No one does
these things without lawyers. But lawyers are not supposed to involve
themselves in unethical schemes. They know this.<br>
<br>
However, the lawyers who participate aren't the only problem. They do it
knowing that other lawyers, who understand what they're doing, will not
lift a finger to stop them, unless perhaps they're prosecutors. Other
lawyers sit on their hands, or say that nothing illegal was done, as if
legality was the only thing in the world that matters. As if they think it's fine when their trust is betrayed except when it's illegal.<br>
<br>
No lawyer has been charged in this matter, and it is unlikely that one
will be. If the <a href="http://www.browardbar.org/" target="”_blank”">Broward County
bar association</a> and other bar associations, as well as individual lawyers, were to say that such schemes are unacceptable and
that they will deal harshly with such behavior, that would make an
enormous difference. Otherwise, Americans will continue to have as
little trust in lawyers as they do in government.<br>
<br>
Robert Wechsler<br>
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics<br>
<br>
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