The alleged corrupt behavior of State Senator Ron Calderon has been at the center of California politics since the release by Al Jayzeera America last week of a sealed FBI agent’s affidavit detailing how Calderon supposedly pushed legislation that would benefit a particular business interest, in this case, a movie production company, in return for them “buying off” the Senator with payoffs.
“How could this happen?” — people will ask.
Obviously legislators are human beings, eh? We are all imperfect. So it makes sense that some will be morally lacking. That’s really no different than any other profession.
In the ideal world, everyone would be an upstanding citizen, a Boy Scout, and always do the right thing, even when nobody is looking.
I guess one might argue that politics, as a field, has the potential to attract a higher percentage of people with questionable ethics. What other professions are centered around money and power?
Some will and have argued that Calderon’s alleged activities create an opportunity to once again step up efforts to try and take money out of politics. Despite the folly of this, as you will never really be able to do that – in the case of Calderon, what he supposedly has done is clearly already against the law. So this would not be a case of someone taking advantage of a “loophole” or some other gray-area chicanery.
I will submit to you, however, that if you want to take a systemic approach to trying to stop this kind of bad behavior – the best way to do that would be to address the “power” side of the equation.
Over an extended period of time – decades upon decades – the size and scope of state government has grown to be quite vast. The amount of tax money taken into Sacramento, and then redistributed out by the Governor and legislature is well north of $100 billion annually.
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