SUMMARY: Modern Mexico faced profound change 100 years ago, when revolution toppled a dictatorship, and the country has remained in a state of political evolution ever since. Mexico City native Joaquin Segura draws inspiration from the growing pains of the region around him, weaving powerful social commentary into his contemporary art. NPR correspondent Lulu Garcia Navarro has Segura’s story.
SUMMARY: Baltimore [Maryland] has acquired a reputation for corruption, illustrated recently by Mayor Catherine Pugh, who resigned over allegations she had inappropriately taken payment in exchange for political favors. But the more ominous threats confronting the city, such as rampant crime and poverty, persist. Amna Nawaz talks to ProPublica’s Alec MacGillis about what could be a “fresh start” for Baltimore.
SUMMARY: Baltimore [Maryland] is once again beset by allegations of corruption. The city’s mayor, Catherine Pugh, is accused of bestowing contracts and political favors on companies and organizations that purchased large orders of her book. The scandal, plus rising crime and a lack of economic opportunity, keep Baltimore residents cynical about government. William Brangham talks to Paul Jay of the Real News Network.
SUMMARY: It’s been a dramatic week for President Trump and some of his former associates. New York Times columnist David Brooks and Ezra Klein from Vox join Judy Woodruff to discuss the President's legal and moral standing, emerging patterns among the circle of Trump intimates, Attorney General Jeff Sessions and the rule of law, and the final episodes of 'great man' John McCain.
Judy Woodruff (NewsHour): But first to the analysis of Brooks and Klein.
That is New York Times columnist David Brooks and Ezra Klein of Vox.com. Mark Shields is away.
Hello to both of you.
It’s Friday. And I say this every week. What a week. But it really is what a week.
David, this week, we saw the President’s former campaign chairman, manager being found guilty of some very serious charges, a number of felonies. We saw the President’s personal lawyer, former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, pleading guilty to a number of serious crimes.
Where does this leave the President?
David Brooks, New York Times: I think hurt.
But the debate a lot of my friends are having, is this the unraveling moment? And I personally do not think it is. It may lead to the unraveling moment.
But the Manafort conviction is on matters that were scarcely related to Donald Trump. The Cohen conviction is about a campaign finance law. I mean, to me, one of the things — weird things about our culture is, the President of the United States paid off two porn stars to keep them silent from an affair, and we’re talking about campaign finance.
To me, the moral affront is so gigantic. The legal affront seems to me less. And so I don’t think that’s the kind of — whether the — whether Michael Cohen fronted him some money to pay off the hush money, that doesn’t strike me as the sort of thing that really alters a presidency.
It does open up a lot of legal avenues. And as the prosecution grants people immunity, the thing about these special prosecutors is, you don’t know where they’re going. And so they may start out with Russia collusions, they may wind up with Stormy Daniels, and then they’re off to the races.
And so, assuming Donald Trump did something else in his life, it seems to me a lot more likely they’re going to find that.
Judy Woodruff: So, Ezra, I mean, just the fact, though, that these two people who are — had such a prominent role for — working for the President in his campaign for presidency, the campaign, and then the person who was his personal — they called him fixer, lawyer, whatever you want to call it, somebody close to him, Michael Cohen.
Ezra Klein, Vox.com: Yes, it does seem like a tremendous coincidence that there was so much criminality and thuggish behavior all around Trump.
I think the thing that is important here is twofold. Number one is what we’re actually seeing is tolerated around Donald Trump. David’s right that I don’t think we know where any of this ends. And I’m not sure that the things we have found out so far are going to lead to the unraveling or lead to impeachment.
But we only know what we know. And what we also know is, there’s a huge amount we don’t know about the Donald Trump Organization, about the connections with Russia. We know that Bob Mueller knows a lot more than we know.
And so, as we see different things come out, as you see what kind of behavior was tolerated, and even encouraged, right — the Michael Cohen behavior appears to have been directed by Donald Trump within the Trump Organization — that should change our estimation of what is going on in the things we don’t know.
The second thing that I just think is interesting and telling this week is Donald Trump coming out and saying that he thinks it ought to be illegal or potentially ought to be illegal, for low-level criminals to flip on their bosses, coming out and saying that what he really hates is rats.
We have a sort of President now saying that what he doesn’t like is snitches. And people who don’t think they have a lot to hide don’t come out with principled objections to that kind of prosecutorial pressure.
Judy Woodruff: Well, I don’t know whether we’re calling them flip — people who flip or not, David, but you have got the man we have been talking about tonight, Allen Weisselberg, who’s the man with the knowledge of the money inside the Trump business organization, on top of his good friend, a man named David Pecker, who runs the company that runs The National Enquirer.
They’re both cooperating. They have been given immunity.
David Brooks: And Cohen and, before that, Omarosa.
Judy Woodruff: Right.
David Brooks: I mean, one thing we have learned about Donald Trump is that he does't inspire a lot of lifelong personal loyalty, that, if you’re working with Trump, it’s not personal, it’s business.
And he turns on people like a dime. And, as a result, people turn on him like a dime. And so you have a lot of people who are loyal for pragmatic reasons right now in the White House and in the Republican Party, but it’s not because of any affection.
And so the lesson is, if things turn, they will probably turn all at once. If it’s no longer useful to pretend you like Donald Trump, people are going to stop liking Donald Trump. And so when something — if there is something big out there — and I want to caution us, we don’t know.
Judy Woodruff: That’s true.
(CROSSTALK)
David Brooks: But if there is something big out there, you will see a turn all at once, because there’s just not a lot of love there holding people to loyalty.
Judy Woodruff: But is the President already weakened by this, Ezra, or do we just wait and watch and withhold judgment?
Ezra Klein: I mean, I do think he’s weakened. The question is weakened in what and in what way.
Long term, I think people underestimate how important Donald Trump’s drain the swamp, anti-corruption plank was to his 2016 victory. It was a very close election. And if you look at the final polls — there was a Washington Post/ABC News poll from just a couple days before the election.
The single category on which Trump led Hillary Clinton was corruption. He was tied on the economy. He was behind on immigration and national security and other things. But people believed in him to clean up Washington, or at least believed in him more than they believed in her to do that.
Donald Trump has now had multiple Cabinet secretaries resign for corruption. He’s had key people around him go to jail. He’s under constant investigation. Things around his family are very strange.
To give up that is going to be rough for the Republicans in 2018. That’s already becoming an issue for the Democrats. But, in 2020, I do think people underestimate how much more difficult it is going to be for him to run as the person who is now a paragon of Washington corruption, as opposed to its key enemy.
Judy Woodruff: Well, how do you see that, David?
David Brooks: It could be.
I mean, if you look at the polling — Ezra would know this better than me, but I saw in AP today where he was down to 38, so maybe there is some slippage.
I would just say, from my personal experience — I was with a lot of — some Trump people this week in North and South Carolina. First of all, we didn’t talk about it. We talked about politics and life in general. But these scandals were just off the radar screen.
I certainly didn’t detect anybody who was a Trump supporter not being a Trump supporter. So, as long as he has a death grip on the Republican Party, and as long as that death grip — or the loyalty is to Trump himself and not to the party, not to any position, which I think it is, he’s where he has been, with a very solid party really wrapped around his finger right now.
Judy Woodruff: But, Ezra, this does seem to be giving pause to at least some of the Republicans. They’re not abandoning him yet, but, in their language, in the way they’re talking about this, you sense a — I don’t know, a discomfort, at the very least.
Ezra Klein: I think has been — I think there’s a lot of discomfort lurking very, very close to the surface.
(LAUGHTER)
Ezra Klein: But, in general, I think this something that we always need to be careful with.
I think the media has a tendency to think about Trump’s support as this one kind of thing. And so we will go and talk to very die-hard Trump supporters and say, OK, do you still support Donald Trump? And they will say, of course I do.
Donald Trump clearly has a base of support, and it’s big. It looks to be around 30-ish percentage points in the polls. There’s a Morning Consult that — this is way too early to do, but matched Donald Trump up against every Democrat they could think of.
And what was surprising was that the support for Democrats varied a lot, from people like Joe Biden, who people knew, to Montana Governor Bullock, who they didn’t. But what didn’t change was Trump supporters, always right around 30 percent.
The key for Trump is not strong Republicans who support him. The question is that sort of 5, 10 percentage points that pushed them over the edge. That’s the people who he can’t lose. And while they’re probably not paying a huge amount of in-and-out attention — a lot of these folks might be less attached to politics than, say, the people in this room — they’re also not die-hard Trump supporters.
And if they begin to think he is part of the problem, that’s where things get very dangerous for him, because his margins have been small. And, also, the coming election is 2018. And Republicans, they don’t have his personal charisma.
SUMMARY: New York Times columnist David Brooks and Ezra Klein of Vox join Judy Woodruff to discuss the week’s news, including President Trump’s likely finalists for the Supreme Court, Scott Pruitt’s exit from the EPA, the President’s insults at campaign rallies, and the horrific stories of family separation at the border revealed in a lawsuit.
Judy Woodruff (NewsHour): And that brings us to the analysis of Brooks and Klein. That is New York Times columnist David Brooks and Ezra Klein of Vox.com. Mark Shields is off this week.
Welcome to both of you.
So much to talk about, but we’re going to start, David, with where we just left off, the Supreme Court vacancy.
What if — of course, we don’t know what the President is going to do, but if it’s down to these three, what does that tell us about what he wants the Supreme Court to be, about his thinking about replacing Justice Kennedy?
David Brooks, New York Times: Well, it’s like we got our old Republican Party back, because these three are not Trumpy people. They are pretty elite, pretty established
And it’s a testament to the Federalist Society, which is a conservative legal society that started in the 1980s, designed to create — to turn talent into judgeships. And they have done a fantastic job over the last several decades of producing just this funnel of talent that goes up to all the courts, but especially the Supreme Court.
And so, whoever the Republican President is, there is just this whole series of people who are well-qualified, pretty temperate, well-connected with each other. And they’re just ready-made. So, it’s made to order.
It’s not a Trumpy set of people. It’s a very establishment set of conservative jurists.
Judy Woodruff: Establishment set, Ezra?
Ezra Klein, Vox: I think that’s right.
So, Donald Trump made this deal with the Republican establishment. And it went something like this. You don’t like me. And I definitely do not like you. But if you unite behind me, you will get your Supreme Court picks.
And, unusually, he brought out this document and he said, these are the people I will look at. And he’s made good on that.
There are a lot of places where he’s been a very, very unusual President, but these are not very different picks than we would have expected from a president Ted Cruz.
The one thing where I do think it’s worth noting that there is a bit of betrayal here is that, at the same moment, Donald Trump is also making a deal with voters. And he was saying, unlike the traditional Republican Party, I care about Medicare, and I care about Social Security, and I care about Medicaid, I won’t let anybody hurt these programs.
And at least some of the picks, particularly Kavanaugh in there, they’re very, very pro-business, very anti-safety net, anti-government action picks.
So, by the same token by which Ted Cruz could be making these picks, there are a lot of Republicans who liked Donald Trump because he wasn’t like Ted Cruz, because he was supposed to be more of a populist. And that is also absent from this process.
Judy Woodruff: What about that, David, and this — what appears to be open squabbling, disagreement, maybe more than that, between social conservatives, who would prefer Amy Coney Barrett to Kavanaugh or Kethledge?
David Brooks: By the standards of the Republican feuds of the last 20 years, this would definitely be in the bottom 5 percent.
(LAUGHTER)
David Brooks: Most social conservatives are a little more for Barrett, some just for optical reasons. If Roe v. Wade is going to be a big issue, it would help to have a woman on the court. They would like to get out of the Harvard-Yale group. And she’s slightly outside that group, I guess.
Kavanaugh is more well-plugged-in to the conservative establishment here. As Ezra said, he has got a much bigger record on economic issues and regulatory issues than she does. She’s more socially conservative.
And she became a lightning rod about a year-and-a-half, I guess, when Dianne Feinstein, the senator of California, seemed to question her Catholic dogma. And that became a rallying cry for social conservatives.
So, she’s sort of the darling. But that doesn’t mean they’re against Kavanaugh. And the Kavanaugh people, they are not against Barrett. There are slight preferences, some of it just political judgment. It’s not anything doctrinal or ideological.
Judy Woodruff: We’re maybe making too much of this?
Ezra Klein: We will see, right? It depends on who he picks. But I agree that it’s not a huge feud inside the Republican Party right now.
Judy Woodruff: Yes. And we don’t know. We have to keep stressing we don’t know what he’s going to do until he makes the announcement on Monday.
Ezra Klein: That’s going to be the name of my memoir for the Trump administration. Of course, we don’t know what the President will do.
(LAUGHTER)
Judy Woodruff: We will remember that.
All right, another personnel move this week, and this one is on the way out, Ezra. Scott Pruitt, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, a lot of news stories about him over the last year or so about alleged ethical lapses. Some of them have been borne out. Others are still being investigated.
Does this tell us something about the President hanging on to him so far, or is it he’s gone, and we move on to the next chapter?
Ezra Klein: I think, if we just let this be a move on, we will have made a big mistake.
Yes, this tells us a lot about President Trump, about their management style. Scott Pruitt’s level of corruption was a magnificent thing. It was something I have almost never seen in politics. It was like he was trolling, like he was daring people to see what was too far.
And the thing that I think it showed about the Trump administration — and I think we have seen this in other places, too — is they have become so used to outrage, they have become — they have this whole idea about triggering the libs, triggering the liberals, doing things that their opponents don’t like.
And there is such deep tribalism, that it begins to destroy their own immune system for seeing when somebody is actually a detriment to them, to their administration.
It was powerful in 2016 for Donald Trump to run as a guy who was going to drain the swamp, powerful for him to run against the perks that people like Hillary Clinton took after they left office.
And now he’s allowed a lot of people like Pruitt to be around him. And he is going to get tagged with all this, these people who are using the public dime to take private flights and first-class flights and build themselves fancy telephone booths.
And the fact that they were not better able to see earlier that this guy was, not just potentially incompetent, but deeply, deeply corrupt, it says a lot about their management style and about what their blind spots really are.
Judy Woodruff: What about that?
David Brooks: Yes. I would say it says two things about the blind spots.
One, the ability to distinguish public service from private enrichment. Just like a normal person, do I get a sweetheart real estate deal with the wife of a lobbyist — connected to a lobbyist in my industry? Like, normal person, oh, red flags, I better not do that, I could get in trouble. He did this over and over again, where normal red flags would go off, and somehow they were not going off.
To me, the bigger problem is that, within the EPA, it became just this — vipers attacking each other. There was no camaraderie. There was no sense of, we’re going to — we’re all part of this together.
And people have been fleeing that agency, Trump appointees, not just the career people. Trump appointees have been fleeing it for months now because the atmosphere was so poisonous.
And so the core issue here is character. And he [Pruitt] seems to lack character, have a vicious or violent character. At the same time, he’s trying to maneuver to get jobs like Secretary of State and [U.S.] Attorney General.
So, you know, character is destiny, I guess except if you’re the Oval Office. Then it doesn’t matter.
Legislators own everything from gas stations to nursing homes, yet they rarely recuse themselves on bills that directly affect them.
This article was produced in partnership with The Advocate, which is a member of the ProPublica Local Reporting Network.
Update, June 6, 2018: Gov. John Bel Edwards announced late Tuesday that he had vetoed a bill authored by state Rep. Lance Harris that would have given gas stations, like the ones Harris owns, an easier path to sue others who sell gas more cheaply. In a veto statement, Edwards wrote that the bill would “likely result in higher fuel prices for Louisiana drivers.”
Louisiana state Rep. Lance Harris, one of the Legislature’s most powerful Republicans, has cast himself as a purist when it comes to conflicts of interest among state leaders.
In April, he introduced a bill that would have prohibited the heads of state agencies from taking side jobs that overlap with their government roles — arrangements he said could put them in a precarious situation.
“The conflict that you get in is, let’s say you’re over the industry itself,” Harris said that month when presenting the bill in a House committee, “you may promulgate some rules or make some decisions that would be advantageous to that particular company or to that particular industry. That’s what it gets at. It’s just a good-government bill.”
Yet, within weeks of introducing that bill, Harris proposed two separate bills that would have benefited Leebo’s, a chain of convenience stores and gas stations that he owns, by making it more difficult for larger retailers to sell gas more cheaply than he does. One bill, critics said, would have raised the price of gas by at least 4 cents a gallon at those large retailers.
In an interview, Harris said he saw no irony in his assiduous policing of executive-branch conflicts while also pushing for legislation that would benefit his business interests. “It’s not a conflict of interest, and we know it’s not because the House rules make it clear and so does the Louisiana state law,” he said.
Harris is right that he’s not breaking a rule. Louisiana’s ethics laws, written by the Legislature, allow lawmakers to author, advocate for and cast votes on bills that would enrich themselves, their relatives and their clients, as long as others in the same affected industry would benefit similarly. Regardless of the law, political watchdogs say, such advocacy is troubling.
“If someone has a financial interest in legislation before them, we just can’t imagine that person to be a neutral judge,” said Pearson Cross, a political science professor and an associate dean at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. “Would you want someone on a jury who will gain financially depending on the outcome of a particular decision? It just shows the craziness of our system.”
This year, The Advocate and ProPublica are investigating conflicts of interest in the Louisiana Legislature. A story in April showed how easy it is for Louisiana’s lawmakers to avoid disclosing income they receive from public sources. The same ethics laws allow lawmakers to openly advocate for their own financial interests.
Even if they’ve recused themselves from voting, legislators can still participate and influence legislation under Louisiana’s ethics laws. And if a lawmaker steps over the line while pushing a bill to benefit himself or herself, complaints can only be brought forward by other members of the Legislature, not the public at large.
Since February, a Louisiana House member who owns a timber company sponsored a measure exempting timber from the state sales tax. Another attorney lawmaker proposed a bill sought by a client, a doctor who lost his license, to revamp the way doctors are investigated and disciplined. A state senator backed a bill that would have helped his brother’s truck stop casino, and legislators who have ownership stakes in nursing homes repeatedly weighed in on bills that would significantly impact their own businesses.
Some of the bills have passed the Legislature; some have not. And some are hanging in the balance, poised to come back in future sessions. In many cases, the lawmakers’ industry ties have been well known among legislators as they’ve debated the proposed laws, often unfazed by the financial benefits their colleagues stood to reap.
The system operates the way it does in part because Louisiana has a part-time, citizen Legislature — in which lawmakers receive modest salaries and often have other full-time careers. It’s expected that they will draw on their professional experience to help inform laws and regulations. The same is true in many other states.
But some say it goes too far. Cross said he’s seen legislators look past egregious conflicts of interest over the years, adding that Louisianans should expect more from their elected officials.
“The idea that someone should recuse themselves during matters of their own interest is a fundamental part of governance in the United States,” Cross said. “The fact that we don’t is just scary.”
Conflicts OK for Some, Not for Others
The way Harris, the Alexandria-based leader of the House Republican caucus, sees it, mom-and-pop convenience stores and gas stations are getting squeezed by national retailers that are undercutting their prices. That’s why he said he proposed a pair of bills to change that.
“In my home market right now, this past weekend, there were two or three national box chains that were selling gasoline” for 17 cents a gallon less than his business could get it for, he told a Senate committee in April.
One of Harris’ bills would have prevented larger retailers who receive a federal subsidy for blending ethanol into their gas from passing the savings on to consumers, a practice he believes is already illegal under state law. The bill sailed through the House, but Harris tabled it before a vote after pushback from the Senate committee. Lawmakers were unfazed by the idea that Harris’ bill could be self-serving, but concerned about the effect the bill might have on their own constituents.
“I don’t want to be saying this, I helped my buddy Lance, but I cost everybody in my state more dollars,” said state Sen. Francis Thompson, a Delhi Democrat.
The bill was opposed by national gas retailers and ethanol and renewable-fuel producers, who argued Harris did not understand the consequences of his bill. They said the cost savings generated from the ethanol blending is already factored into gas prices and impossible to separate out.
“I can assure you this, there will be a 4-cent increase in our stores if this bill becomes law,” said Kevin Ainsworth, a lobbyist for RaceTrac, which has 69 locations in the state. “Louisiana citizens will pay more at the pump.”
Harris’ second bill, which would make it easier for businesses to sue retailers who illegally undercut their gas prices, passed both chambers.
Though Harris openly drew on his own experience while testifying about his failed bill, in a recent interview, he downplayed the legislation’s potential effect on him.
“My locations aren’t that close to the big boxes,” he said.
Elliott Stonecipher, a Shreveport-based political watchdog and pollster, doesn’t buy it.
“No matter what the representative says, he is hard at work for his own financial benefit,” Stonecipher said. “The fact remains that taxpayers — those who voted for him, those who refused to, and the massive majority who do not even know who he is — are paying him a salary, and not insignificant expenses, to significantly profit himself.”
Members of the Legislature earn between $30,000 and $40,000 a year for their hours in the state Capitol.
While he was pushing for passage of his gasoline pricing bills, Harris was also advocating for legislation to ban the conflicts of interest of state department heads who work for Gov. John Bel Edwards, a Democrat and a key foe.
Harris didn’t name names when he presented his bill, which ultimately failed, but he said the stakes were too high to test the public’s confidence when it comes to people running the state’s agencies.
“Due to the public trust of being a public servant, it’s very important that you put in 100 percent time and work full-time and you don’t have any perceived or otherwise enhanced conflicts of interest,” he said in the April committee hearing.
Harris said it’s routine for lawmakers to sponsor legislation that favors whatever industry they work in. The governor, who is a lawyer, did the same thing in 2012 when, as a legislator, he sponsored a bill that would have increased the cap on damages people could have collected in medical malpractice lawsuits from $500,000 to $750,000, Harris said. The bill did not pass.
“That would benefit the trial attorney industry, but there were no questions asked when he did that and no articles were written,” Harris said.
Richard Carbo, Edwards’ deputy chief of staff, said Harris’ comparison is off the mark.
“As a lawyer, Gov. Edwards never been involved with a medical malpractice case. But Lance Harris sells gas every single day. At the very least, he could have been upfront with the Legislature that his business is directly impacted by the legislation he was proposing,” Carbo said. “Rep. Harris shouldn’t be taking money from the people he represents just to pad his own pockets.”
Overhaul of Ethics Laws Does Little
In 2008, at the urging of then-Gov. Bobby Jindal, legislators passed an overhaul of ethics laws, tweaking rules about how and when legislators must recuse themselves. Before, elected officials could still vote on matters even when they had a conflict as defined by Louisiana law, as long as they disclosed it.
Now, they aren’t allowed to vote if a bill would treat them differently than others in similar situations. For instance, if Harris proposed legislation that would only benefit his gas stations, he wouldn’t be able to vote on it. But since his bills affect the entire industry, the law doesn’t view them as a conflict of interest.
Louisiana legislators file more than 1,200 bills a year. But since 2004, only four lawmakers per year, on average, have recused themselves from votes because of personal conflicts, according to a review of legislative activity by The Advocate and ProPublica. That number peaked in 2009, when eight lawmakers recused themselves from votes shortly after the Legislature passed its ethics law.
In 2015 and 2017, there were no recusals for legislative votes.
Over time, loopholes in the 2008 law have become clear. First, while lawmakers are not allowed to vote if they have a prohibited conflict of interest, they are still allowed to participate in the debate. Second, if someone outside of the Legislature identifies a violation, it can only be considered if another member of the Legislature decides to take it up.
Alfred “Butch” Speer, the longtime clerk of the Louisiana House who provides legislators guidance on this issue, said in his 40 years on the job, no representative has been censured over a conflict. Brenda Hodge, a spokeswoman for the Senate, said she likewise knows of no censures in the Senate.
Speer calls conflicts of interest a “thorny” issue.
Because lawmakers’ salaries are relatively low, conflicts tend to be embraced rather than avoided. Speer said it’s important that lawmakers who are educators weigh in on education bills, and that lawyers in the Legislature weigh in on proposed changes to the legal system. Likewise, farmers should debate agriculture policy and business owners should help shape regulatory policy.
Firsthand knowledge is what fuels a citizen legislature, he said.
“You don’t want people who have never had the benefit of life experience being the only one to weigh on laws,” he said. “That’s the antithesis of a citizen legislature.”
Julie Quinn, a former Republican senator from Metairie, said she believes the law is written too loosely. At a minimum, she said, people who are financially impacted by bills in some distinct way should have to disclose that orally or in writing during floor debates and votes.
“If my law firm represents State Farm and this insurance legislation impacts State Farm’s business, you should articulate your financial interest,” Quinn said. “Those things never happened, and it should happen. That was the spirit of ethics reform, but the law is so specific that it’s highly unusual that anyone would ever have to recuse themselves.”
“There’s a Line We Do Not Want to Cross”
Earlier this year, lawmakers were called into a special session to figure out how to close a budget gap of hundreds of millions of dollars that still threatens to shutter a range of state services. The prevailing idea was to retain some expiring state sales taxes.
Amid that debate, state Rep. Jack McFarland, a Jonesboro Republican, proposed an amendment that exempted the sales tax for loggers, paper and wood manufacturers. The exemption would have peeled off about $3 million in state revenue.
The break would have benefited his own business, McFarland Timber. But McFarland noted that timber is the largest industry in his district and one of the most important agricultural industries in the state, so he is a natural advocate.
“I appreciate how it can be perceived, I can. And I think about that. Other members have asked me, ‘Are you being self-serving?’” he said in an interview. “And there’s a line we do not want to cross.”
McFarland’s amendment was approved but, ultimately, the sales-tax bill was rejected by a vote of the House. During the second special session, which ended Monday, when another sales tax renewal was considered, the exemption for timber was included in the original bill so McFarland didn’t have to pursue an amendment. He voted for the bill, but it stalled in the Legislature earlier this week.
McFarland said he expressed support to the bill sponsor about including the exemption.
“I said I obviously want it in there,” McFarland said. “It’s the largest industry in my district, so it’s imperative that it’s in there.”
A third special session will take place this month and the issue could come up again.
Lawmakers Who Own Nursing Homes
When the Legislature debates bills affecting nursing homes, a highly regulated industry, legislators’ conflicts of interest are often thrown into high relief. This year, for example, nursing home administrator and state Rep. Bob Hensgens (R-Abbeville) sponsored a bill that would have extended a long-standing moratorium against assisted living facilities that offer nursing care — would-be competitors of nursing homes that offer the elderly more autonomy and privacy.
Sharla Aloisio, executive director of the Louisiana Assisted Living Association, took issue with Hensgens’ advocacy, saying the proposed law would limit “free market and consumer choice.”
“Why is the nursing home industry so anxious to pass such legislation?” she said.
In an interview, Hensgens said he doesn’t know if the assisted living facilities would be able to compete meaningfully with nursing homes, because there are so few in the state. But he said he proposed the bill only out of concern that the Louisiana Department of Health did not have the staffing to oversee new assisted-living facilities. The bill did not get a hearing in the Legislature, and Hensgens said he opted not to pursue it.
But last year, the same measure was proposed as an amendment on an unrelated bill with a week left in the regular session. The sponsor of the amendment then was state Sen. Fred Mills, who has a 10 percent stake in a nursing home. Mills is also a bank president and owns a pharmacy.
When the bill went to a conference committee to negotiate the final product, two out of the three Senate conferees had financial ties to nursing homes. In negotiations, the proposed five-year moratorium was cut back to a single year.
And this year, after Hensgens abandoned his moratorium bill, Mills for the second year in a row amended an unrelated bill to impose the moratorium for another five years. After pushback from assisted living facility owners, he withdrew the amendment.
Terry Crochet, an assisted living facility owner, said their association sent hundreds of emails to legislators asking them to oppose Hensgens’ bill and Mills’ amendment. He said when the moratorium expires this year, he plans to get a license.
“When Fred Mills tacked on that amendment again, we just came unglued again,” Crochet said. “These people should at least recuse themselves and not directly vote on things that affect their pocketbooks.”
Andrew Muhl, an AARP lobbyist who has backed bills opposed by nursing home owners, said it’s frustrating to have lawmakers who may be motivated by business ties have outsized control over debates that affect the elderly. Last year, The Advocate reported extensively on the influence of the nursing home industry over the Louisiana Legislature and how it has successfully lobbied for financial protections while blocking seniors from getting home-based services they would prefer.
“Unfortunately, we often see legislators with financial interests fight for a bill or kill a bill that impacts their bottom line or is in their best interest financially,” Muhl said. “But is it in the best interest of taxpayers and families?”
This year, Mills, chairman of the Senate Health and Welfare Committee, also presided over meetings where two controversial bills opposed by the nursing home industry were heard and debated. As chair, Mills didn’t have to vote, but he did weigh in on the debates and asked questions.
One of the bills would have expanded home health services, and presumably drawn business away from nursing homes, by shifting elderly Medicaid enrollees into managed-care plans. That bill was rejected. The other bill would require nursing homes to allow residents to keep surveillance cameras in their rooms so their families can keep an eye on them. It has since been signed into law.
Mills said in an interview that when he first joined the Legislature in 2007, amid the push for ethics reform, he was more cautious about conflicts. In 2011, for instance, because the pharmacy and nursing home he partially owns provides care to Medicaid patients, he recused himself from a far-reaching bill that sought to redirect money from the state tobacco settlement to pay for scholarships instead of a fund where it was used for health care.
But Mills said he hews much more closely to the letter of the law now, openly using his business expertise to inform his decision-making in the Legislature. He noted that he has voted against the wishes of the nursing home lobby before, including this year when he voted for a nursing home camera bill that the industry opposed.
“I struggled with it at first, but then I realized that all of us represent some sort of business interest,” he said.
SUMMARY: Baltimore City Public Schools faced outrage from parents after images emerged of students wearing coats in a freezing classroom. More than a third of schools reported a lack of heat this winter during a cold snap, and that’s just one of the many problems plaguing the school system’s crumbling infrastructure, underscoring a larger debate about long-term funding and investment. John Yang reports.
SUMMARY: Two Baltimore city police officers were convicted in federal court on Monday on charges including racketeering and robbery, as part of a brazen corruption scandal. Baltimore’s Gun Trace Task Force were tasked with getting illegal guns off the street, but used their authority to target people for theft. John Yang talks to Jayne Miller of WBAL-TV about the debate on how the city police force needs to change.
SUMMARY: Four months after Hurricane Maria, about 450,000 of 1.5 million electricity customers in Puerto Rico still have no service. Blackouts regularly occur for hours at a time, even in San Juan. Special correspondent Monica Villamizar reports on the emergency efforts to restore power, and how some have taken matters into their own hands as outdated technology, and suspected corruption, stand in the way.
SUMMARY: Several top Trump administration officials have come out defending senior adviser Jared Kushner after it was reported that he had discussed with the Russian ambassador the possibility of opening a secret communication backchannel between the Trump team and Russia. William Brangham gets perspective from former CIA officer John Sipher and former FBI agent Frank Montoya, Jr.
SUMMARY: William Brangham talks to Amy Walter of The Cook Political Report and Tamara Keith of NPR about the allegations against Jared Kushner over his communications with Russian officials, the White House's handling of the Russia probe and takeaways from President Trump's first foreign trip.
SUMMARY: When it comes to the Russia investigations, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper asks: “Why all the cloak-and-dagger secrecy?” In a wide-ranging interview with Judy Woodruff, Clapper discusses the probe into Jared Kushner's alleged secret back channels with Russia, along with North Korea's nuclear program, and the recent terrorist attack in Manchester.
SUMMARY: Even after two weeks since the last on-camera White House briefing, the main topic was the same; the connection between Russia and the Trump campaign, specifically reports that Jared Kushner sought to set up a direct line to Russia's President Putin outside normal diplomatic channels. Meanwhile, President Trump tweeted about fake news and criticism of Germany. John Yang reports.
SUMMARY: Widespread protests broke out across Russia on Sunday to denounce government corruption, the biggest show of defiance against President Vladimir Putin in years. Hundreds of protesters were arrested in Moscow and elsewhere. Chief foreign affairs correspondent Margaret Warner reports, then Judy Woodruff talks with journalist and author Masha Gessen about the protests and Putin.
JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour): Widespread protests broke out in cities across Russia's 11 time zones yesterday to denounce government corruption.
Chief foreign affairs correspondent Margaret Warner begins our coverage.
MARGARET WARNER (NewsHour): The sentence for Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny was handed down this morning in Moscow: 15 days in jail for resisting police. He was also fined 20,000 rubles, about $350, for organizing yesterday's mass protests against alleged government corruption.
ALEXEI NAVALNY, Russian Opposition Leader (through interpreter): I think yesterday's events have shown there is a large number of voters in Russia who support a candidate who speaks for the fight against corruption. These people demand political representation.
MARGARET WARNER: The demonstrations were the biggest show of defiance against President Vladimir Putin since 2012. Tens of thousands rallied in 99 cities, from St. Petersburg and Moscow in the west, to Chita in Siberia, to the far Pacific coast port of Vladivostok.
Navalny generated the protests, in part, to demand the resignation of Prime Minister and former President Dmitry Medvedev. Navalny released a video earlier this month showcasing myriad mansions, yachts and vineyards Medvedev allegedly has amassed. Hundreds of protesters were arrested yesterday in Moscow and elsewhere.
Today, the European Union called for their release. A Putin spokesman said: “The Kremlin respects people's civic stance and their right to voice their position. We can't express the same respect to those who consciously misled people and provoked illegal actions.”
White House spokesman Sean Spicer said today:
SEAN SPICER, White House Press Secretary: The United States will monitor the situation. And we call on the government of Russia to immediately release all peaceful protesters.
MARGARET WARNER: For his part, Navalny has announced plans to challenge Putin for president in 2018. But his eligibility to do so is in question over previous criminal charges.
For the PBS NewsHour, I'm Margaret Warner.
SUMMARY: In Venezuela, hundreds of thousands came out in protest against President Nicolas Maduro, whose approval ratings have reached record lows. The cause for discontent: Food is now incredibly scarce and far too expensive to buy, and the hunger is leading to and caused by growing corruption. Nathan Halverson of Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting reports from Caracas.
HARI SREENIVASAN (NewsHour): In Caracas, today, hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans turned out to protest against President Nicolas Maduro's government and called for an end to his rule.
The country has been plagued by a deepening economic crisis, corruption, crime, all of which have contributed to a worsening food shortage.
Nathan Halverson of Reveal from the Center for Investigative Reporting recently visited Caracas,.
NATHAN HALVERSON, Center for Investigative Reporting: Well before sunrise, hungry Venezuelans are waiting outside grocery stores praying for food trucks to arrive. By mid-morning, with streets crowded with anxious faces, there is little hope.
WOMAN (through translator): There is only butter and oil. We need them to send us more food.
QUESTION (through translator): When did you get here?
WOMAN (through translator): At 4:00 a.m.
MAN (through translator): I got here at 8:00 p.m. last night.
As Venezuelans watch their country crumble and their desperation and hunger spill into the streets, their anger with President Nicolas Maduro and his party has become explosive.
WOMAN (through translator): This is what's happening in Venezuela. We're starving. We're struggling, thanks to this government. It's the Maduro diet.
NATHAN HALVERSON: Police now guard grocery stores across the country, holding back the hungry and volatile mobs.
MAN (through translator): Why are you taking me out of line? I was here early. I also need food.
NATHAN HALVERSON: Some 90 percent of Venezuelans now report that food has become too expensive to buy. Hungry mobs are increasingly rioting and looting bakeries and food trucks. This has forced everyday people to try and calm desperate crowds, like this grocery store manager.
SUMMARY: As Brazil prepares for its first Olympic Games, violence is flaring in the notorious favelas surrounding Rio de Janeiro. While a paramilitary policing initiative known as “pacification” stemmed the tide of drugs and crime for a while, economic downturn and widespread police brutality have once again turned the slum districts into war zones. Special correspondent Lulu Garcia-Navarro of NPR reports.
HARI SREENIVASAN (NewsHour): It's just over two months until the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.
For the host country, Brazil, it's been a troubled journey. The Zika virus, corruption scandals, and an economic and political meltdown have all had an impact. But for many residents, the most worrying development is a spike in crime across Rio and what happens after the athletes go home.
“NewsHour” producer Jon Gerberg teamed up with NPR's Lulu Garcia-Navarro, and they report from the shantytowns, or favelas, of Rio de Janeiro.
And a warning: Some of the images are disturbing.
LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO (NPR): The image of glamorous Rio de Janeiro most people know; world-famous beaches like Copacabana, a draw for tourists and residents alike.
But just behind the high-rises and hotels lies another world. These are two impoverished communities called Babilonia and Chapeu Mangueira. They are at the heart of a bold policing experiment that started in 2008. It's called pacification.
It introduced community-based police units to many favelas that are close to tourist areas, its aim, to push out the violent drug gangs that operated here in advance of Brazil's debut on the world stage with the 2014 World Cup and, in two months' time, the Olympics.
Babilonia and Chapeu Mangueira together became the poster children of Rio's transformation. Crime dropped. New businesses opened, catering to tourists. Police would walk around with their weapons holstered. Dignitaries like U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon and media like me were taken here to show off the project's success.
But that success is now under threat. Pacification is in crisis. The first time I came to this favela three years ago, it was safe. It was known as the Disneyland favela. This time, residents refusing to talk to us because they have been threatened by drug traffickers. And the only way we can come is with heavily armed police.
These pacification units, known as UPPs, now walk around ready for battle. Two rival gangs are violently fighting for control in this area, and police are struggling. At the crest of the favelas, Commander Paulo Berbat tells me the gangs use these jungle paths to ferry weapons and drugs in and out.
He told me that, in March, the battle for control over these routes turned deadly.
So, he's saying that, just up here in this area, members of a rival gang from a different community used the cover of the forest to try and invade this community and take it over. There was an intense confrontation between the drug gang that controls this community, and three of the drug traffickers were killed.
Businesses that had flourished, attracting foreigners, are now reporting a 50 percent drop in revenue. Even though no visitors have been harmed in Babilonia and Chapeu Mangueira, tourists are choosing to stay away. It's a shocking turnaround for the residents here.
Among them is Rodrigo da Silva. He sells food to make a living on the beaches just near his home in Chapeu Mangueira. He had hoped that the Olympics and pacification would provide new opportunities, so he opened a hostel, advertised on Airbnb, but clients today are scarce
RODRIGO DA SILVA, Favela Resident (through interpreter): Our business has decreased. We had much higher expectations in terms of hosting people throughout the Olympics. If the situation had improved, maybe I wouldn't still have to work here on the beach.
LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO: Concerned about gang pressure, da Silva only agreed to meet us outside his favela.
RODRIGO DA SILVA (through interpreter): If you talk too much, it ends badly. Here's the deal: You do not mess with their business. I don't mess with their stuff and they don't mess with mine. Everyone wins, in a way.
SUMMARY: In Kenya, corruption and bribery are commonplace in law enforcement and the government. Many police officers seem more interested in keeping citizens' cash than keeping the peace, allowing criminals to get off. Meanwhile, the government has "misplaced" $999 million. Special correspondent Nick Schifrin and producer Zach Fannin report in partnership with the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.
JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour): Now we continue our series Inside Kenya.
The World Bank says Kenya is growing faster than any other sub-Saharan African country. But there is one major impediment to the country’s continued growth.
Tonight, in partnership with the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, special correspondent Nick Schifrin and producer Zach Fannin examine the reality of Kenyan corruption.
NICK SCHIFRIN (NewsHour): In Kenya, even the world’s fastest men can’t outrun corruption.
The Rift Valley is known as the Valley of Champions. The best marathon runners are born here and train here.
Mind if I join you?
Hillary Kiplimo runs three times a day. He is tireless and fast. He averages about 4.5 minutes a mile. It’s tough to keep up.
Whoa. He’s good. And that’s slow for him.
After years of training, he finally broke through. He finished third in last year’s Nairobi Marathon.
HILLARY KIPLIMO, Marathon Runner: This is for position.
NICK SCHIFRIN: So, it says number three, because you came in third.
HILLARY KIPLIMO: Yes.
NICK SCHIFRIN: He and his wife thought he’d finally fulfilled his dream of running his way out of poverty. But his dream’s been denied.
So, you got your medal, you got this number three, you got the jersey and you got this, but you never got a cent.
HILLARY KIPLIMO: I never got a cent.
NICK SCHIFRIN: On the results Web site, his name was replaced. And his $3,500 winnings vanished.
So, where’s the money going?
HILLARY KIPLIMO: I think those people, they kept the money.
NICK SCHIFRIN: Athletics Kenya, the race organizers.
HILLARY KIPLIMO: Yes.
NICK SCHIFRIN: Last November, dozens of runners protested at Athletics Kenya. The group has exclusive oversight of all Kenyan athletes.
Kenyans hold records in nearly every distance. They say, as they run faster, Athletics Kenya steals more. Athletics Kenya didn’t respond to a half-dozen e-mails from “PBS NewsHour.” Hillary suspects there’s only way to get their attention.
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BONIFACE MWANGI, Activist: They tear-gassed innocent kids who only wanted to access their playground. Other countries have mafia. In Kenya, the mafia have a country.
SUMMARY: On Thursday, Guatemalan President Otto Perez Molina was forced to resign. By the afternoon, he was in court, accused of taking part in a multi-million dollar bribery operation, and then he spent the night in jail. Judy Woodruff takes a closer look at the dramatic turn of events with Adriana Beltrán from the Washington Office on Latin America.
JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour): We turn now to a major shakeup in the Central American nation of Guatemala.
On Thursday morning, President Otto Perez Molina was forced to resign. By Thursday afternoon, he was in court to face charges, and he spent the night in jail. He’s accused of taking part in a multimillion-dollar bribery operation. As the allegations were revealed over the summer, tens of thousands of Guatemalans took to the streets, demanding accountability.
For more on these allegations and what it means for that country, I’m joined now by Adriana Beltran. She’s a Guatemala expert at the Washington Office on Latin America. It’s a research group that advocates for human rights.
Welcome to the NewsHour.
ADRIANA BELTRAN, Washington Office on Latin America: Thank you, Judy, for inviting me.
JUDY WOODRUFF: So, tell us, what are all these corruption charges about? What do they actually involve?
ADRIANA BELTRAN: Well, back in April, the Guatemalan public prosecutor’s office and the U.N.-led International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala, or CICIG, unearthed a massive corruption scandal within the tax authority office.
It implicated a number of high-level officials that had essentially set up a scheme where they were accepting massive bribes for importers to be able to pay lower taxes, thereby defrauding the state of millions and millions of revenue.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And this has been unfolding over the year. Earlier this year, the vice president had to step down.
ADRIANA BELTRAN: Right.
So, due to these charges, the vice president was forced to resign in May. In August, following more investigations that were carried out by the prosecutor’s office and by the CICIG, they announced they had sufficient evidence to allege that both former Vice President Baldetti and now former President Otto Perez Molina were involved in this case.
SUMMARY: Angola is a country of extreme wealth, thanks to oil and diamonds. Yet, it has the highest child-mortality rate in the world. Rampant corruption accounts for a large part of this contradiction. Nicholas Kristof, an op-ed columnist for The New York Times, joins Gwen Ifill to discuss the country’s disheartening situation.
JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour): The city of Luanda, the capital of Angola, was recently named the most expensive city in the world to live in for expatriates, beating out Tokyo, Hong Kong and Moscow.
But Angola also bears the distinction of being the country with the highest child mortality rate in the world.
The ties that bind the two? Corruption.
Gwen Ifill picks up the story from there.
GWEN IFILL (NewsHour): The West African nation of Angola is a land of contrasts, where the gap between the very rich and the desperately poor is so great, that its most vulnerable population, children, are dying every day.
Nicholas Kristof, the op-ed columnist for The New York Times, spent five years trying to get a visa into Angola to see for himself, and he recently returned with stunning video. He traveled there with video journalist Adam Ellick.
NICHOLAS KRISTOF, Columnist, The New York Times: This is the deadliest country in the world for kids, and yet the government has just cut the health budget by 30 percent.
At a sunset dance party in the capital, Luanda, you would never know there’s a health crisis here. That’s the crazy part. This country is actually filthy rich, flush with oil and diamonds. There’s so much money here that a one-bedroom apartment downtown can cost $12,000 a month.
The real problem is it’s just spectacularly corrupt. Officials here spend $50 million a year on luxury cars alone. Judges here get Jaguars to drive, as kids perish at the highest rate in the world.
JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour): Hundreds of millions of people around the globe will be watching fervently next week when the World Cup (soccer), the world’s most popular sporting event, kicks off in Brazil.
But a series of reports and investigations are casting a cloud over the sport and its international governing body, FIFA.
Jeff is back with that story.
JEFFREY BROWN (NewsHour): One investigative series, published in The New York Times, found a match-fixing syndicate was able to manipulate several contests in the run-up to the previous World Cup in 2010. The stories included tales of apparent bribery that led to clearly suspicious calls by referees in an effort to exploit matches for betting purposes.
Separately, The Sunday Times, a British newspaper, published new documents showing corruption and payments behind Qatar’s successful bid to host the Cup in 2022.
Declan Hill is an investigative journalist who co-wrote The New York Times series. He joins us now.
So these games that were fixed in the run-up to the last World Cup, tell us briefly what happened.
JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour): So, reaction to the court’s decision was, as you can imagine, swift. Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer of New York said it — quote — “turned back the clock on our democracy.” House Speaker John Boehner hailed it as a victory for the First Amendment.
REP. JOHN BOEHNER, R, Ohio, Speaker of the House: What I think this means is that freedom of speech is being upheld. You all have the freedom to write what you want to write. Donors ought to have the freedom to give what they want to give.
SEN. CHARLES SCHUMER, D, N.Y.: The very wealthy should be allowed to participate in the system, but most people would agree, if you did a balancing test, already their weight is disproportionate, and this makes it more so.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Hari Sreenivasan (NewsHour) in our New York studio gets more reaction now.
JUDY WOODRUFF (Newshour): Now to nearby Turkey, once a model of stability in the Middle East, where an exploding corruption scandal threatens the government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Chief foreign affairs correspondent Margaret Warner explains.
MARGARET WARNER (Newshour): Tensions erupted in the streets of Istanbul this evening, as police blasted protesters with water cannon, tear gas and plastic bullets.
The crowd threw rocks and shouted "Catch the thief," a cry aimed squarely at Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in the eye of a widening corruption probe. But, earlier today, the prime minister defiantly rejected the calls for his removal.
PRIME MINISTER RECEP ERDOGAN, Turkey (through interpreter): Let me be clear. If our nation tells us to leave, we will go. There's no hesitation there, because that's the office we respect. But when the people are telling us to stay, we won't listen to someone who is telling us to go.
MARGARET WARNER: The controversy exploded 10 days ago, when police detained two dozen people, many with Erdogan party ties, in a 14-month-long corruption and bribery investigation.
Officers raided the home of the CEO a major state-owned bank, discovering boxes of Turkish liras. The video got wide play on Turkish TV. It was a sudden blow to Erdogan and his Islamist Justice and Development Party, the AKP, who have ruled for 11 years.
Erdogan lashed back, charging that political foes, led by followers of Islamic cleric Fethullah Gulen, and foreign powers were plotting to bring down the government.
RECEP ERDOGAN (through interpreter): Those who are receiving the support of financial circles and media cannot change the direction of this country.
MARGARET WARNER: But, eight days later, on Christmas Day, three cabinet ministers resigned after their sons were implicated in the investigation. Later that day, Erdogan replaced 10 ministers, but again denounced the investigation as conspiracy.
RECEP ERDOGAN (through interpreter): We are facing an attack against the Turkish people and the Turkish republic which is presented as a corruption probe.
MARGARET WARNER: His government also tried to head off the probe with a new decree forcing prosecutors to clear their efforts with their superiors. And last night, the prosecutor leading the probe charged interference and was removed hours later.
But, today, a Turkish court annulled the decree requiring high-level approval for all investigations. The new controversy comes on the heels of gigantic summertime protests against the government's plans to raze Istanbul's popular Gezi Park to make room for development. Both have taken an economic toll. Foreign investors are dumping Turkish bonds, and the Turkish lira has dropped dramatically.
SUMMARY: Once regarded as the model for successful Muslim democracy, Turkey is now facing corruption allegations that go right to the heart of the government. Chief foreign correspondent Margaret Warner joins Judy Woodruff to discuss how Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan is attempting to fight back.
Here at ProPublica, we’re great believers in the idea that public revelation of scandal leads to reforms. Over the years, we’ve seen plenty of evidence that sunshine is a disinfectant, from the New Orleans police department to California’s nursing board.
But I have to admit that there may be one pestilent corner of the body politic where such cause and effect physics don’t yet seem to apply, a black hole within which the forces of greed have to date overwhelmed all good sense and every call for redemption.
You’ve already guessed, of course, that we’re talking about Albany, New York.
Like many of the notorious outposts on America’s map of graft, Albany has a storied history of dishonest behavior. When Abraham Lincoln wanted to push the 13th Amendment through a recalcitrant Congress, his Secretary of State, William Seward, told the president he’d need to make some ethically dicey promises, work best left to an operative skilled in the darkest arts of politics.
“I’ll fetch a friend from Albany,” Seward, a former New York governor, is quoted as saying in the movie "Lincoln." “Spare you the exposure and liability.”
It doesn’t appear much has changed. This week alone, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York went before the cameras twice to announce indictments of state legislators. Thursday’s announcement – Bronx Assemblyman Eric Stevenson was arraigned on bribery charges – came with a twist; a legislator had been wearing a wire for the Feds for months, maybe years.
The collective shiver in the Capitol scored pretty well on the Richter scale.
But evidently, there was more to fear than future indictments. Stevenson, on a recording, seems to have given some thought to the idea he might one day be busted.
Were he to be caught, he threatened, “somebody’s going to the cemetery.”
Murder. Now, that would still rate as a pretty unusual Albany crime, at least outside the novels of William Kennedy.
Anyway, as a lifelong New Yorker, I went searching for a novel insight into all the wrongdoing. I took the handy guide offered on Wednesday by The New York Times after the week’s first round of indictments.
I started at the array of photos and applicable misdeeds – really, it resembled a yearbook layout former State Comptroller Alan Hevesi might have put together in the prison library – and re-read the news accounts behind the lineup of photos: the indictments and the plea deals, the teary allocutions and the withering remarks from federal judges; the repeated, and ultimately erroneous declarations that Albany had hit rock bottom, the pledges of reform, the terms of the jail sentences and the hours of community service assigned.
The cases pretty well run the gamut. Veterans, freshmen, members of the State Senate and State Assembly. Democrats. Republicans. Payoffs and paybacks, sex and drugs.
Not all the names will be familiar to people outside New York. Not all the names, in fact, will be familiar to New Yorkers. The relative anonymity of our representatives in Albany might have something to do with their proclivities. I’ll do my best to help everyone keep things straight.
First off, I can’t say I found any magical thread linking them all. But a few noteworthy patterns did emerge that suggested that, for whatever reason, these folks have a powerful belief that they enjoy impunity.
One consistent problematic habit: They love to shop. Really love to shop. We’re talking Buzz Bissinger style shopping. Big ticket items.
A Bentley, for instance, for Carl Kruger, a powerful state senator who, among other noteworthy achievements, had taken a stand against gay marriage. Parking certainly wasn’t a problem. He and his boyfriend lived, along with the boyfriend’s mother, in a house originally built for a mobster. The architect for the house, prior to being slain on orders of the mobster, had thought to include a driveway.
Diane Gordon, a fairly undistinguished lawmaker from Brooklyn, got rung up on some fairly non-routine bribery counts. She was looking for more than a car. She wanted a house. Maybe more than one. But however many, they had to have, among other amenities, walk-in closets.
“One hand washes another,” she once told her co-conspirator. Right, and then, hands washed, Gordon needed to get back to that ample closet and pick out the day’s outfit for Albany.
Pedro Espada might be one Albany felon known outside New York. The state senator’s exploits – using a health care operation in a disadvantaged part of the Bronx to line his impeccably tailored pockets – made Page 1 of the Times with some frequency.
Part of his front page appeal was his famously expensive taste for sushi and lobster. Turns out, though, his crowning food shopping achievement was the $5,000 he and others spent eating at Yonkers Raceway. I repeat – 5 grand spent at Yonkers. For crimes that boggle the mind that one’s hard to beat.
Then, of course, there was Assemblyman Brian McLaughlin. He’s the guy who was simultaneously a legislative leader and the boss of the nation’s largest municipal labor council. Even in Albany, you’d think that might have constituted a red flag. Conflict? What conflict?
In the end, McLaughlin wasn’t that conflicted. He stole from both the state and his union – and, yes, a Little League team, too – and had to forfeit some $3 million to the court.
I actually don’t know what he shopped for. But suffice it to say the man had options.
At his sentencing, McLaughlin made a bid for leniency. He’d turned things around. He was in Alcoholics Anonymous, though that might not have been the addiction he needed to address first.
The judge wasn’t much moved. He noted that the size and variety of McLaughlin’s thefts – “brazen and perversely creative” were his precise words – “staggers the mind.”
McLaughlin got a decade in a federal lockup.
Which leads me to what turned out to be both my funniest and most dispiriting moment – hey, like I said, this is an Albany story – as I worked my way through The Times’s presentation of perps.
While, sure, I chuckled darkly at recalling that Hiram Monserrate, prior to taking up his Assembly seat in Albany, had retired from the New York City Police Department on a psychiatric disability. Worrying that he might be a danger to himself or others, news reports asserted, the department moved quickly to strip him of his guns.
Great. Take away his guns, but give him a gavel, and a member item budget. Alas, physical violence was Monserrate’s undoing, his assault of his girlfriend hastening his departure from the Capitol.
And yes, it was charming to revisit Mike Cole’s night out with interns. He got so drunk with them he wound up spending the night on the floor on an intern’s bedroom. His punishment was the loss of $9,000 and a helping of Albany irony: He no longer would serve as the ranking member of the Assembly Committee on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse.
No, my favorite revelation was learning of the posh trappings at one of the federal prisons that wound up housing several of Albany’s malefactors.
This was The Daily News’s portrait of the federal facility in Otisville, N.Y.
“The prison’s store doubles as a delicatessen, serving up such favorites as rib steak, gefilte fish, kugel, salmon, chorizo and smoked oysters. It’s only a 90-minute drive for visitors from the city, and it has bocce courts, horseshoe pits and enough room to play soccer. Convicts could stay up until 2 a.m. on Friday and Saturday nights watching HBO, Showtime and Cinemax … Memorial Day and the Fourth of July are celebrated with cookouts serving hamburgers, hot dogs, watermelon and potato salad.”
“The food is right. The commissary is right. The officers don’t bother you. There are a lot of courses you can take. You had weights inside and outside, free weights and machines,” one inmate told The News. “Food, activities, TV and movies, and visitations are the four things you judge a facility by. Things were good.”
The latest assortment of Albany’s finest might well then take heart. If things go badly at trial, ask for Otisville, a federal lockup that appears to be the next best thing to Albany.
....most longtime creatures of the Beltway, only sees "corruption" in terms of elected officials breaking the laws written by…elected officials. But that will always be only a bit of the very tip of the iceberg, such a small part of the problem as to be essentially irrelevant. Washington itself is corrupt. All of it. Every elected official wins office through an elaborate system of legalized bribery called campaign donations and quid pro quo, and every single law passed or not passed and signed into law by the federal government is the product of the judgment (and both political and monetary interests, which are basically interchangeable) of the people amoral enough to have already been bribed into office. Most of whom are focused from the moment of that election on raising money for the next election, often from the same corporations and industries they oversee, write bills for, and vote on other bills regarding.
It's hard to imagine a more corrupt system. It's far worse than wheelbarrows full of money, because they don't make wheelbarrows large enough to contain the sort of cash that gets someone elected to Congress (let alone the presidency). We live in an electronic age, and compared to the amount of money a corporation can make from favorable legislation -- sometimes billions of dollars -- wiring money to buy a few Congressmen is astonishingly cheap.
That's corruption....
