The Anti-Corruption Political Strategy. And an Alternative.

One of the principal reasons I have devoted myself to local government ethics is that the ethical habits of government officials and politicians are usually formed at the local level. Politicians who become accustomed to a poor local ethics environment bring their values to state and federal government.

The saddest side of this is that many politicians learn at the local level that running on an anti-corruption platform is a good way to get elected, but that once elected, ethics reform only makes enemies. They also learn that few people notice the difference between window dressing and true ethics reform. It is no wonder that the most corrupt politicians began their careers as anti-corruption activists, and that the knowledge that anti-corruption platforms win races works at every level.

An article in today's New York Times shows how this scenario has played out in the political career of New Jersey gubernatorial candidate Christopher J. Christie. He ran for county freeholder (council member) on a good government platform, criticizing no-bid contracts, patronage, and gifts to officials. After winning his first election, his ethics reform package failed, and that was the end of ethics reform. He went on to vote for over 440 no-bid contracts to companies that gave him campaign contributions (he opposed only one, to a firm that in the future gave him contributions and to which he approved further no-bid contracts).

Recently, he defended his votes. According to the article, in an interview "he said he saw little merit in voting against other no-bid contracts merely to make a point. 'I was not a guy who was into protest votes and grandstanding,' he said."

When he became a federal prosecutor, he called no-bid contracts “the biggest problem in corruption in New Jersey,” but went on to give many no-bid contracts to friends and allies.

Now he's changed his tune. “I think there’s more things that are involved than I understood at the time. I no longer think it’s the biggest thing, but it’s still an element, no question.”

Now he is running for governor on another anti-corruption platform, trying to tie the governor to the latest New Jersey corruption scandal. As if he'd never himself been involved in the sort of corruption he publicly said was most important only seven years ago.

It's hard to say what is the single biggest ethics problem in local government, but where there are no-bid contracts, there will always be corruption. No-bid contracts can cost communities millions of dollars a year. And those millions of dollars a year is what funds corruption. No one allows businesses to bid more for a contract to help their friends and political colleagues. No one is that nice. Those millions of dollars are usually shared around in one form or another:  kickbacks, gifts, large campaign contributions, jobs for family members, gifts to favorite charities, etc.

No-bid contracts were certainly the biggest problem in my town, when I first became involved in local government ethics. They showed me that whoever controls the procurement controls the politics. Political power itself is a rush, but when you have no control over procurement, the money tap is turned off. That need fuels partisan politics in localities with poor ethics environments.

No-bid laws themselves are not enough, because there are numerous ways to get around them, especially exclusions (which are often numerous) and contract specifications that favor certain companies and exclude others. That is why it is so important to deal not just directly with contract bidding, but also with the numerous ways in which those in control of procurement can get money or favors from contractors.

Christopher J. Christie knows all this. He knew it from the beginning of his career, while on the county board, as county prosecutor, and as gubernatorial candidate. But he has used this knowledge more as a political strategy than for the ethical practice of government.

He has the opportunity to show people how deeply ingrained political corruption is in New Jersey by admitting that he himself was corrupted at the local level and that, even as a prosecutor, he was unable to resist giving no-bid contracts to friends and allies. This is the lesson he could give New Jersey. Others would have to stop denying that they too were responsible for unethical conduct. And true, effective ethics reform would be the result.

It might even get Christie elected.

Robert Wechsler
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics

---