Just as a good safe-cracker can crack the safest safe, so
can a good lawyer crack the most forbidding of laws, which is why, come to
think of it, good politicians bulk up on lawyers whenever they slip on banana
peels. Politicians who are also lawyers sometimes find it less expensive to cut
out the middleman. Then again, one always has to be careful: A fool has himself
as a lawyer. For the sake of clarity, it must be mentioned here that the word
“good” as used above is not intended as an ethical descriptor but rather as an
indicator of legal ability. Democratic State Central Committee's lawyer David
Golub (see below) is a “good” lawyer; that is, he is able to exploit a twist in
the law to benefit his client.
Following the corruption conviction of Governor John
Rowland,, the General Assembly, dominated since 1967 by Democrats, decided that
ethical probity could become a political virtue if – big “if” – a law could be written that would prevent
state contractors from contributing large sums of money to political campaigns.
The clean campaign finance law passed through the General Assembly like a hot
knife through butter. All incumbent politicians in the state thrust out their
chests and vigorously clapped each other on the back. They, at least were,
ethical.
That law has now been filleted and cooked by Connecticut’s
Democratic Party. It happened, Mr. Golub assures us, because the state law forbidding
campaign corruption was in conflict with a federal law allowing corruption and,
in any struggle between a federal law and a state law, the state law must give
way. Mr. Golub has not and will not explain in his legal brief how the two laws
came to be in conflict.
The ethical and legal crash occurred because Democratic
Governor Dannel Malloy, once a prosecutor himself, determined that he would skirt
the law promulgated by the Democratic majority in the General Assembly years
earlier. He easily might have bowed to the state law, thus avoiding the
conflict that soon will be played out in Connecticut’s congested courts. The
conflict exists because good lawyers exist. Mr. Malloy is a good lawyer who saw
an opportunity to exploit a political advantage, and he did so – brashly, unapologetically and, true to character, energetically.
Connecticut law absolutely and unambiguously prevents state
contractors from contributing campaign funds to incumbent politicians who may yield
to corruption and exploit the state’s political power grid. Federal law allows
such crony capitalist contractors to contribute money to state political
parties, which then may launder the contributions, passing them along to ethically
deficient state politicians.
There is a fig leaf proviso governing the use of such funds
that covers a multitude of sins. The majesty of law says to state contractors
who, human nature being what it is, hope to reap benefits through their campaign
contributions – no, you may not contribute to the campaigns of politicians who are in a position to assist you through the
awarding of state contracts; but, says the federal law, you may send your funds
to state party coffers with some assurance that the contributions will reach your
intended targets.
Mr. Malloy used the laundered contributions to defray the
cost of political mailers to which was attached, in very small print, the
requisite fig leaf, the bare mention in a political campaign document when
polls would be open on election day. This note served as a “get out the vote message,” a fine-print footnote that opened access to federal funds in the custody of the
Democratic Party.
The “conflict” Mr. Malloy is now banking on to render
pointless Connecticut’s clean campaign law was, in fact, caused by Mr. Malloy
when he chose to exploit a tempting political opportunity that would allow him
to grab more campaign funds, an action highly recommended by that old political
reprobate George Washington Plunkitt (1842-1924). When an ethicist pointed out that the
Tammany Hall ward boss was enriching himself at the public
trough, the painfully shameless Mr. Plunkitt retorted, “I seen my
opportunities, and I took’em.”
Mr. Malloy is not the first, nor will he be the last,
treacly, lawyered-up politician to exploit the law for his own benefit. “If men
were angels,” said James Madison, widely regarded as the father of the U.S.
Constitution, “there would be no need for governments” or, he might have added, for good lawyers like Mr. Golub. Mr. Madison perceived a connection between ethics,
right order and government that, at least in Connecticut’s unitary state,
appears to be missing in action. No
doubt the lawyers will thrash out in court the bounds of legal conduct; and, of
course, the case will drag on though the usual legal permutations. But one
thing is absolutely certain: The Government we now have in Connecticut –
unitary and rapacious – is not on the side of the angels. Indeed, the more
litigious and crafty our one-party state becomes, the more it will wander into
unethical thickets. Perhaps voters, if
not judges, will take notice and throw out all the unabashedly unethical Plunkitts.
Comments