No tolerance

This couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy — well, OK, nice is not the issue. From everything we’ve heard, former State Sen. John Lynch was a nice guy, a real saint. But John Lynch was a corrupt politician, pleading guilty to accepting payments in exchange for using his position in the state Senate to influence the state Department of Environmental Protection on behalf of the Dallenbach Sand Mining company in South Brunswick. (Dallenbach was never named — just a sand-mining company in South Brunswick, which pretty much narrowed it down.)

So now, Sen. Lynch is going to jail — for 39 months — hopefully sending a signal to office-holders around the state that if you abuse the public trust, you will pay a price.

The judge pretty much summed up why the sentence in this case fit the crime (quoted in The Record):

“Mr. Lynch, you have done wondrous good,” U.S. District Judge Stanley Chesler told the 68-year-old Democrat, “but by your conduct here you have done horrendous harm.

“You had power, prestige and a substantial income through lawful means. So what prompted you to engage in a scheme to sell out your office is beyond me. There is no doubt that it wasn’t simply a slip — it was planned.”

The Star-Ledger, in its editorial today, was pretty blunt:

It’s not an exaggeration to say that Lynch embodies much of what is wrong with a New Jersey brand of politics that be gins with the principle of scratch-my-back, I’ll-scratch- yours and ends with no itch unsatisfied.

And Bill Handleman, in a news analysis in The Asbury Park Press, called Lynch “the Moby Dick of political corruption in New Jersey,” adding that “Lynch got what he had coming to him.”

Now maybe the next crook will think twice before he sticks his hand in somebody else’s pocket. That’s the way the earnest young U.S. attorney saw it.

Next month Christie will have been on the job five years. During that time, he said, 100 public officials have either pleaded guilty to a crime or been convicted of one. “There has got to be a point in time when public officials get the picture,” he added.

I hope so. This state has earned itself a reputation as one of the most corrupt in the nation (though it appear far less dirty when compared to its own past history and some of the unsavory things that the GOP-controlled Congress has managed). And it is a special, bipartisan corruption that has hit nearly every level of government — the McGreevey administration, the state Senate and Assembly, Bergen and Hudson counties, municipal governments around Monmouth County and elsewhere.

And that only takes into account the obvious, illegal kind of corruption, leaving aside the standard-fare, legal variety — campaign contributions and political lobbying.

This legal corruption is more difficult to prove, of course, but the pay-to-play culture is just as damaging to government as the illegal kind, eroding confidence, adding millions to professional service fees (and tax bills) around the state and leading to government policy and actions that benefit contributors rather than the state’s citizens.

The answer? It’s manifold — increased enforcement (U.S. Attorney Chris Christie has done his part), tighter ethics rules elected officials and lobbyists, public financing of elections, an extensive ban on pay-to-play. All this will help, but it ultimately as Christie told Handleman, it maybe time that “voters … think about ‘electing better people and holding them more responsible.’ “

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

Author: hankkalet

Hank Kalet is a poet and freelance journalist. He is the economic needs reporter for NJ Spotlight, teaches journalism at Rutgers University and writing at Middlesex County College and Brookdale Community College. He writes a semi-monthly column for the Progressive Populist. He is a lifelong fan of the New York Mets and New York Knicks, drinks too much coffee and attends as many Bruce Springsteen concerts as his meager finances will allow. He lives in South Brunswick with his wife Annie. View all posts by hankkalet