COMMENTARY
Rod Watson: ‘Everybody does it’? Then go after them
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Maybe Brian Davis should run for Congress. While Davis was being bounced from his Buffalo Common Council seat for diverting $1,900 in campaign money to his personal piggy bank, Rep. Eric Massa continues in office despite misusing much more money in essentially the same way.
The juxtaposition of those two cases illustrates why some folks—even those who think Davis deserves his fate—feel confident he could win re-election.
It’s the “everybody does it” defense, and it’s a major reason there’s so little regard for government and everyone involved with it.
“There’s no clean hands in politics,” said Marshall Young, 70, who lives in Amherst but was raised on Bennett Street in the heart of Davis’ Ellicott District. He was back this week, as he often is.
“Are anybody’s hands clean?” mused Young, who described himself as a distant cousin but who nevertheless took a hard line against Davis. “He shouldn’t have done it, and you have to suffer the consequences of your actions.”
But Massa, a Corning Democrat, won’t suffer anything for using campaign funds to pay himself $15,000 for the arduous task of running for office, and paying his wife an additional $18,000 to help.
Nice work if you can get it. Apparently, in Congress, you can get it if you try.
While state law bans what Davis did, federal law allows the Massas’ money grab. Good-government groups decry the practice. But a jaded public believes “good government” has very little to do with what happens on Capitol Hill, in City Hall or in Albany.
That cynicism is corrosive.
“There are probably a whole lot of people guilty, who’ve done things and haven’t resigned,” said Kenneth Rankin, a 70-year-old Sherman Street resident who didn’t think his Council member should have been ousted for such a relative pittance. “Some have done worse than him, probably, and are still there. They haven’t been caught. . . . He’s just the one who got caught.”
Recalling disgraced Washington Mayor Marion Barry, who was elected to the D. C. City Council after getting out of prison, some feel that voters—not a Common Council majority looking to add an ally—should decide Davis’ future. They say he would win again at the polls.
But that’s just a measure of how little we expect of our politicians—and all the more reason to take a hard line when they or their backers cross the line.
With Congress writing its own laws, Massa will get a free pass because he apparently broke no statute. There’s no such fig leaf at the local level, so that’s where we have to start.
Whether it was former Erie County Legislature Chairman George Holt dodging sales taxes, former West Seneca Supervisor Paul Clark’s corrupt campaign for county executive, or the eight-year Ellicott representative skimming money and filing false election reports, breaking election laws has to have consequences.
The best way to end the “everybody does it” excuse is to go after everybody who does it.
But that also means pursuing more than just politicians, because the corruption extends well beyond them.
It’s nice to see the district attorney’s office pursue the Council member after using budget woes as one excuse to ignore alleged violations by the money man for billionaire Tom Golisano’s political committee.
But now that the office has shown that it can go after the likes of Davis, there are still two words the DA can say if he’s really serious about restoring public confidence throughout the system: Steve Pigeon.
rwatson@buffnews.com
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