Fordham Law Professor Zephyr Teachout and anthropologist and Public Policy Professor Janine Wedel present a powerful case that fighting corruption is the fundamental organizing principle of progressive politics and the only remedy to what ails this country.
Zephyr Teachout made news when she stood against Andrew Cuomo for the gubernatorial nomination of New York and garnered a third of the Democratic vote. A central theme in her publications and in her campaign is that our government is failing because a small elite has formed an insular network, rife with conflicts of interest. Many otherwise good people are nevertheless corrupt because their other interests conflict with the public interest. In her book, Teachout names names. On BookTV, she and Professor Janine Wedel, in a conversation moderated by Lawrence Lessig, gave a powerful presentation arguing that the situation is dire, perhaps hopeless, but that the remedies for it are to be found in the anti-corruption principle embedded in our Constitution (see here for her latest book). For those who have watched the Roosevelt series on PBS, this will not come as a surprise. The source of energy for Progressive Politics, at the time of Theodore Roosevelt embedded largely in the Republican Party, was a revulsion against corruption and a desire to purge and modernize the political system. Indeed, Franklin Roosevelt got his start in politics by running against bossism in both the Democratic and Republican Parties.
From Teachout's 2009 Cornell Law Review article:
It is not an overstatement to say that the
framers of the Constitution saw the document as a structure to fight
corruption.
...
I argue that the concept of corruption—literally a threat
to the integrity of self-government—has itself lost its integrity [because it has been narrowly re-defined as a simple quid pro quo].
...
Justice Antonin Scalia has argued that the concept of corruption has become logically
unsustainable; Justice John Paul Stevens (as well as several commentators) has attempted to cram it into equality frameworks instead of corruption standing alone. Justice Clarence Thomas has offered to do us a service and throw it out entirely, arguing it means nothing more than the criminal law of bribery.
...
Half of Americans are convinced that Congress is corrupt...
...
corruption is when something breaks within itself: the apple rots on the shelf; narcissism corrodes the soul; government internally disintegrates. The integrity
of the object of corruption is threatened by internal decay.
...
The Framers of our Constitution considered political corruption a key threat—if not the key threat—to the young country....Steeped in the writings of Montesquieu, in which corruption plays the lead antagonist to a flourishing polity, they examined all kinds of corruption that might breed in the proposed governmental structures and designed the Constitution to include as many bulwarks against corruption as possible.
...
a defining feature of the republican tradition is that it understands corruption as the biggest threat to good government. Republicanism is associated with the rule of law, instead of the whims of tyrants or mobs, and a belief in the importance of mixed government to secure a stable government. At the heart of the republican tradition is a belief in the critical importance of some kind of civic virtue and the impossibility of a public-serving government without it.
Now, Andrew Cuomo is hardly the worst governor in the United States. But he is corrupt. Considersome of his behavior during the campaign:
His campaign repeatedly tried to kick her off the ballot with legal challenges, sent flunkies to protest her,reportedly threatened other elected officials with political reprisals if they endorsed her and refused again and again to debate.
Cuomo used his public office to perpetuate his own power. This is corrupt. And when we add it to
the rest of his behavior--fundraising from an oil and gas industry that New York must regulate if it is to preserve its groundwater, closing down an anti-corruption commission when it turned to look at his allies--it's quite clear that he is serving his own interest in conflict to that of the public. He may not have violated any laws, though some questions remain in that regard, but he is corrupt in the sense that our Founders regarded as one of the greatest enemies to our freedoms.
Here are some of the people Teachout has named in regard to buying control of education policy in New York (via Ravitch):
A small cadre of men, including Carl Icahn, Paul Tudor Jones, and Dan Loeb, poured more than $10 million into state lobbying and election campaigns since the beginning of 2014, with electrifying results. Their campaign bears the signature components of the corporate takeover world which they occupy: rapid action on multiple fronts; highly secretive activity shielded from the public view; high stakes, big spending; and top-down power plays that are not accountable to the public.
Dan Loeb, at least, is supposedly a very nice man and a liberal Democratic donor. He is also responsible in part for corrupting the decision-making process when it comes to education in New York. Paul Tudor Jones
is a walking donation box for Democrats. So until Democratic politicians start refusing to take donations in exchange for influence on education policy, they too are corrupt. This will not happen until a new Progressive movement starts running candidates like Teachout whose major support comes from small donations.
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Added: As Teachout says, there are some very obvious things we can do to improve things. Public campaign finance is probably the single most important thing. Naming and shaming is possible with politicians, academics, and others who care about their reputations (although, as Teachout points out, economists seem to be beyond shame). Media reform is essential. Imposing ethics rules that seal the revolving door are another.
For those who are interested in the role of the courts in corrupting the system, and how those might be fixed, Irvine law dean/professor Erwin Chemerinsky's BookTV presentation is well worth watching.