Criminalizing Politics

Politics has become criminalized.  Politicians are doing it to one another. 

It is a dangerous development.

It has created two risks, prison and bankruptcy.   Politicians don't just lose and go home.  They stand risk of being subject to investigations and criminal trial.  

There is a trial going on for Senator Menendez of New Jersey.  He had a rich and generous campaign donor and friend, one who comped Menendez to flights in his private jet and to three nights in a hotel room.  The allegation is that Menendez then lobbied on his behalf, illegal quid pro quo.  The case is similar to the one that snared Virginia governor Bob McDonnell, who got gifts from a donor and then, as Governor, promoted the donor's business.   McDonnell argued that promoting Virginia businesses is what governors do; prosecutors said it was tit-for-tat bribery.  There is a kind of happy ending for McDonnell.  The Supreme Court vacated the conviction   He is free again, although the process cost him his office, his wife, his money, and for a while his freedom.  A high price.

Crowds cheer this

The criminalization of politics is popular.  Trump dishes it out.  Democrats like dishing it back.  It motivates voters. 

Trump leads crowds into chanting "Lock Her Up", referring to Hillary Clinton.  To be precise, Trump does not himself start or participate in the chant.  He tells the crowd that corrupt Crooked-Hillary would, were she elected president, ignore the 2nd Amendment and confiscate all their guns.  That is the cue. The crowd, not Trump, starts the chant.   Trump beams as the chant goes on a while, then says to take it up with his Attorney General.   "Lock her up" tee shirts were available for purchase at Trump's campaign rallies.

Meanwhile, Democrats love the investigation of Trump and potential collusion between his campaign and Russian hackers.  Apparently all the White House aides, assistants, special deputies, indeed everyone who has talked with anyone about anything has needed to secure a lawyer.  It was just like this back in 1998 curing the Starr investigation of Bill Clinton.  What did you hear from anybody about Bill Clinton's sex life?   

That is me on the right.  Age 29

A personal perspective on all this.

Forty years ago, in the late 1970s, I was in my first steps in a political career.  I was aware that it was a tough environment.  The nation had gone through Watergate.   A Jackson County Commissioner was recalled by the voters, under fire for the political crime of doing exactly what state law required of her.  I was an aspirant for her vacancy, and eventually won the position.

I knew politics was tough, but I did not consider it criminal.  I experienced the risks of being caught up in lawsuits.  I had been an aide to a congressman back when that photo was taken.  I got a telephone call at my home, I answered, then the caller hung up.  Ten minutes later my doorbell rang.  A man handed me an envelope and said, "Peter, you are served."   The three page document inside the envelope was suing me for $200 million dollars.  What?!  At the time I was earning about $1,500 a month.

I was one of several hundred people named in the lawsuit.  The paperwork claimed President Carter, Vice President Mondale, the entire cabinet, some dozen Interior Department officials,  a few dozen congressmen and senators by name, John Does number 1 through 100, and me, a local aide to a congressman, had all apparently been involved for a decade in a giant conspiracy to deny him the ability to mine gold on the Illinois River.  I knew nothing about anything.  I had a short time to respond, or else default, the paperwork said.  I was the only person who was actually served the lawsuit, so I was the only one who needed to locate an attorney and deal with the mess.  It eventually got dismissed.  It cost me two week's income.  I got reimbursed eventually! 

My sense from back then was that any part of government that I saw for myself was squeaky clean.  At no point during my term as County Commissioner, did anyone take me to lunch, much less offer me a gift, and this was during the time we rezoned the entire country, with zoning decisions that had multimillion dollar implications to landowners when we drew lines for industrial zone (valuable) vs. woodland resource (nearly worthless), or inside an Urban Growth Boundary (valuable) vs. outside it (less valuable).  No one lobbied me.

Normalizing perpetual investigations

I left office thinking that the consequence of losing an election was that a person went off and did something else, not that ones opponents, or unfriendly prosecutors, looked for ways to construe your behavior as criminal, or that the consequence of being in politics was potential bankruptcy if someone was motivated to start investigations.  

That was then.  

We have now normalized endless investigations.  Jason Chaffetz warned before the 2016 election that if Hillary won he would run investigations for at least two years and likely more.  It was a credible warning, and it garnered more praise than scorn.  

Never-ending.

Punishment by bankruptcy.  Bankruptcy by lawyer may not be the stated goal of an investigation  but it is a powerful weapon for prosecutors and political opponents.  I have watched it happen here in Oregon. Former Governor John Kitzhaber was investigated by federal prosecutors for two years. They found nothing prosecutable.  He needed to participate in the records discovery, with deadlines and severe consequences for mistakes.  The governor's salary in Oregon was $98,600, but his lawyer bills cost him many hundreds of thousands of dollars, paid for personally out of pocket by Kitzhaber.  The new governor having declined his requests for his legal costs to be reimbursed by the state.  He was on his own here.   

The end of the federal investigation does not end it for him.  Now there is a round of state investigations.

Kitzhaber is 70 years old.  He is not too old to start over.  Seventy is the new fifty. There is no quick or easy solution for him; he is not someone likely to get a million dollar advance on a book.  He paid a price, as did the various aides, some of whom will get their legal expenses reimbursed, some not.

What happened?

What happened for them is that they got caught up in a new deeply undemocratic and dangerous idea that is becoming normalized with politicians and with the public they arouse into angry chants.  We have criminalized politics.

Is Oregon a corrupt place?  Is the criminalization of politics well deserved here and a strong incentive for good, clean government?   The Washington Post says just the opposite.  But one consequence of the criminalization of politics is that people who might be willing to serve well and honorably look at the situation and think "no thanks."