Shaking Down or Institutional Corruption?

There is a fact of life that is very hard for many local elected
officials to admit:  most of the campaign contributions given
to incumbents and serious challengers come from two sources: 
those seeking special benefits from the government and those who
work for the government (and their unions). If both of these groups
were not permitted to make campaign contributions, local elections
would be contested with very little money, unless the government
instituted a public campaign financing program.<br>
<br>
Instead of admitting the facts of life, politicians undermine the
public trust with personal attacks that turn into ugly squabbles like <a href="http://www.chron.com/news/politics/houston/article/Hall-accuses-Parker-…; target="”_blank”">the

one reported by the Houston <i>Chronicle</i> last week</a>. When the
incumbent mayor filed a campaign report showing dozens of contributions
from interested professionals, contractors, and developers, her
principal challenger called her a "shake-down artist." I doubt she
had to shake down a single contributor, and the challenger, a former
city attorney, most likely knew this.<br>
<br>

Here's the full quote: "The city of Houston is a victim of a mayor
who is a shake-down artist. We have discovered astounding
correlations between the mayor's award of city contracts in exchange
for lucrative payments by contractors to her for her campaign."<br>
<br>
An attorney knows that "correlations" are not proof of "exchange,"
and that mayors do not award city contracts. The great majority of
them are awarded through a competitive bid process (the big
exception is professional contracts), and the council approves
contracts. The current city attorney says that the mayor is
"consciously uninvolved in all forms of procurement to avoid
political attack."<br>
<br>
In other words, the mayoral challenger undermined the public trust
by attacking the mayor for doing things she did not do and for things she did do, but which
are legal and common nationwide. He proposed ethics reforms, but
created a scandal relating to his opponent rather than recognizing
an institutional problem that needs fixing, but has little or
nothing to do with the current mayor.<br>
<br>
Of course, once the mayor had been personally attacked, the mayor's campaign
could not let the matter go or discuss solutions to the institutional problem. Instead, it came back with its own accusations,
calling the mayoral challenger "the king of pay-to-play." A
statement says that the former city attorney resigned "while under
investigation for corruption involving city contracting practices.
And within a week of leaving City Hall, he took a million-dollar job
with a firm to which he had steered a lucrative city contract."<br>
<br>
So what choice does the public have? It's a "shake-down artist"
against "the king of pay-to-play." The candidates insist the story
is one of individual corruption when it is really a story of
institutional corruption, the story of legal conduct that creates an
appearance that officials are being bribed with contributions and
jobs.<br>
<br>
The mayoral challenger's ethics reform proposals are good (but they
are only piecemeal changes to a program that lacks some of the
essential elements of a local government ethics program). The
proposed changes include a two-year moratorium on accepting campaign
contributions from municipal appointees and vendors, and on any city
employees registering as lobbyists or working for lobbying firms; a
$250 limit on contributions to candidates for city office from an
officer, director or employee of a city contractor; a gift ban for
mayoral candidates; and the creation of searchable online databases
of city contracts and check registers.<br>
<br>
But the proposals would be even better if the challenger would admit
that what the mayor is doing is an unfortunate fact of life rather
than an act of personal corruption.<br>
<br>
Robert Wechsler<br>
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics<br>
<br>
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