Remarking on the
guilty verdict in the recently concluded trial of former radio talk show host
John Rowland, Senate Majority Leader Martin Looney noted, "It's very sad to see.” Mr. Rowland’s
fall from grace was due “at least in part” to arrogance, but it was also
related to the fact Mr. Rowland “never learned to find alternative ways of
earning a living other than through political influence."
Mr. Rowland may or
may not be arrogant, an attribute usually associated with politicians; what is
the difference, for example, between arrogance and self-assurance, and is it
possible for politicians who lack self-assurance to be effective in office?
It is undoubtedly
true that Mr. Rowland was inept in earning a living when he was a
politician. Other politicians are far
smoother in the gentle art of making politics pay.
For more artful
politicians, there are alternative ways of earning a living that are perfectly
legal, if ethically dubious. Former Speaker of the U.S. House Nancy Pelosi
regularly steered business to her husband.
Here in Connecticut, 3rd District Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro has shown herself a master
exploiting her political influence, according to a 2011 piece in Human Events,
“DeLauro Campaign Finances Raise Questions.”
“In the last four
congressional election cycles,” Human Events noted three years ago, “the
campaign committee for Rep. Rosa L. DeLauro, Friends of Rosa DeLauro,
transferred $1.2 million to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee,
which in the same period paid $1.9 million to Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research
for polling and other services, according to Federal Election Commission (FEC)
filings. Stanley B. Greenberg, founding partner of GQRR, is DeLauro’s husband
of 33 years.”
Mrs. DeLauro’s seat
in Congress, surrounded by a moat of media good will, is well-nigh impregnable.
And though questions were raised outside the state, here in Connecticut the
usual ethical watchdogs did not rend the air with howls of protests as Mrs.
DeLauro moved money effortlessly from campaign donations to the Democratic Campaign
Committee, which gratefully provided alternative means to her wealthy husband.
According to the three year old Human Events story, the DeLauro’s are not
living from hand to mouth. Mrs. DeLauro falls in the top 10 percent of the
wealthiest members of Congress. Her digs in Washington D.C. are suitably plush and spacious enough to
entertain lavishly government officials, potential donors and down on their
luck political operatives such as Rahm Emanuel, President Barack Obama’s
political godfather, for whom Mrs. DeLauro once provided room and board. U.S.
Senator Dick Blumenthal is also in the top ten.
Mrs. DeLauro is one
of seven members of Connecticut’s U.S. Congressional Delegation, all Democrats.
The last time her seat was held by a Republican was in 1983. Only the 1st
Congressional District, U.S. Representative John Larson’s bailiwick, is
considered more Democratic. Among active registered voters in 2012, there were
in Mrs. DeLauro’s District 145,529 Democrats, 65,324 Republicans and 178,593
Unaffiliateds, a margin so comfortable that even a political reprobate like Mr.
Rowland might be able to defend the district against all challengers – provided
he were a Democrat. It is the virtual certainty of reelection in the 5th
that has freed Mrs. DeLauro to be Mrs. DeLauro.
Which is what? The
answer to this question depends upon one’s political point of view. To put the
matter briefly, the fabulously wealthy Mrs. DeLauro is perhaps the most
progressive Congresswoman in the state’s delegation. In Districts more open to
challenge – say, the 4th or 5th – Democratic politicians
tend to be more cautious. Mrs. DeLauro can well afford to throw caution to the
wind.
Her great wealth,
the political makeup of her district and a disinclination among Connecticut’s
media to scrutinize closely her foreign and domestic policy voting record, all
combine to teflonize Mrs. DeLauro. The more impregnable she becomes,
the less critical Connecticut’s media becomes with respect -- just to pick one
example out of a hat – to Mrs. DeLauro’s foreign policy prescriptions. Indeed, foreign policy is not even listed
among areas of concern under the “issues” section on Mrs. DeLauro’s official congressional site, very likely because she has shown little
concern for a foreign policy engineered by President Barack Obama that strikes
many of her center and right of center constituents as dangerously
incomprehensible.
Comments
-------
Political scientists Ken Kernaghan and John Langford define self-dealing as "a situation where one takes an action in an official capacity which involves dealing with oneself in a private capacity and which confers a benefit on oneself."[1]
Examples include "work[ing] for government and us[ing] your official position to secure a contract for a private consulting company you own" or "using your government position to get a summer job for your daughter."[2]
Where a fiduciary has engaged in self-dealing, this constitutes a breach of the fiduciary relationship. The principal of that fiduciary (the person to whom duties are owed) may sue and both recover the principal's lost profits and disgorge the principal's wrongful profits.
------
Which is to say that she doesn't have to act the tyrant in order to get votes. She would win, still be able to shuffle money through Mr. Delauro's outfit, even if she were to consider the interest of her district and country; act with a modicum of decency, patriotism, and common sense rather than as a rubber stamp for our alienated Presidente de la Pluma y del Telefono. She operates the way she does out of sincere fanatical ideological dedication.
But what does it say about the people of that district that elect her and reelect her so enthusiastically? And, acknowledging that about them, must we not also admit that we are doomed, or at a minimum, we have a plausible excuse for thinking so.