Corruption: That was then. This is now.

I was in office in the Post-Watergate Era.

What Trump is doing would have been unthinkable.

I used to be young.

Sometimes I irritated my fellow commissioners

The 1976-1985 era was not some Golden Age of everybody-get-along. There was plenty of controversy. Amid the controversies, the era was characterized by a bend-over-backwards effort to demonstrate that government was free of corruption. It was a reaction to Watergate.

Jimmy Carter was famous for being corruption free. He kept his brother at arms length. He put his peanut business into a blind trust. He asked us for self-sacrifice by turning down our thermostats and driving 55 mph on roads engineered to be driven at 65 and 70. Appointees to the Carter administration were prohibited from doing the revolving door of leaving the administration and then getting a high-paying job in the industries one regulated. 

In the trenches of local government in Medford and Jackson County, Oregon, it mean obeying the Public Meetings Law, first passed in 1973, which involved a complex set of public notices of agendas, public disclosure, and requirements that all meetings among members of a majority of any public body be done in public, with recordings and written minutes  In a three-person governing body like the Jackson County Board of Commissioners, it meant that I could not talk with my colleague in the next office. 

There were reporters out there eager to bust our chops if they thought we did. In those days the news was a watchdog.

I won election in 1980 because I was the "clean government" candidate. My Republican opponent was a civic leader, very tight with the local business, labor, and governmental establishment. They loved him, his ads said. My campaign argued that I stayed clear of the special interests. 

It was an era of full disclosure of conflicts of interest and potential conflicts of interest. The county commission heard land use appeals to zoning and building issues directly, in public. At each hearing I would report in a flat, matter of fact tone, that I had received campaign contributions of $10 from Mr. John Doe, $20 from Mrs. Mary Roe, etc.   

At no point in four years as a commissioner, in which we were making land use and other regulatory decisions with enormous financial consequences for the people involved, did anyone every ask me to have lunch. No one bought me coffee to visit about their case. There was never the hint of a whiff of feeling out whether I was amenable to "giving a break" to someone on a decision. There is enormous latitude of gray area in making zoning decisions. Where land stopped being zoned "rural residential" and developable into five-acre parcels, and where it began being "agricultural open space" — a designation that prohibited parcelization and home building — had life-changing, million-dollar consequences for the landowner.

It wasn't that I communicated prickly ethical character. It was the era. It was the norm. Government was clean. The umpires were straight-arrow fair.

Trump has reversed the polarity of clean government. Corruption and favor-granting is open. Trump gives pardons to campaign contributors who are guilty of major felonies. Trump openly helps political allies and punishes political opponents. Trump awards contracts to friends, campaign contributors, and to family. He holds banquets to recognize people who purchased his crypto coin, a direct payment to Trump. He doesn't pretend a blind eye. He thanks them at a banquet to let them know their tribute is noticed. 

Newsweek

I am hopeful that Republican voters become uncomfortable with what Trump is doing. I see signs of it among some opinion leaders in the media, but not among Republican politicians; they dare not confront Trump. Politicians will change when Republican voters change, and it hasn't happened yet.

I am hopeful that Democrats nominate a leader noteworthy for his or her straight-arrow history. Someone who hasn't traded stocks in Congress. Someone who demonstrated some self-sacrifice and patriotism in his or her personal life. 

I am ready for the pendulum to swing back to clean government. It will happen only if voters demand change because they are offended by what they see right now. I am.

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