The spate of indictments of New York's elected officials appalls everyone, and rightly so. It's especially galling if, like me, you spent most of your professional life in state government.
That being said, the initial eruption of outrage and condemnation was largely off-point. People took these events as proof of what they already believed, not as a chance to rethink a problem. It's time to figure out what's really going on, and what we can actually do to improve things.
State government is not fundamentally corrupt. Most decisions, especially the big ones on taxes, education and health care etc. are not the product of bribery and law-breaking. The overwhelming number of public officials in the judicial, executive and legislative branches are on the right side of legal and ethical standards. However, a crook is a crook, and it's got to stop.
The big ethical failures are legal. The really malign influences on public decision making are not what most of us mean when we say something is corrupt. Big money changes outcomes to be sure, but the money shows up legally. The most obvious is the big checks to the PACs, the legislative committees and the statewide candidates — especially for governor. But the side money, such as the checks Mike Bloomberg wrote when seeking permission to run as a Republican, is both legal and even more corrosive of honest behavior.
Beware the remedy-obessed. Everyone has a pet remedy, which alone will solve all ethical problems. For those, like me, who support public financing of campaigns, it was easy to say "See, we need public financing." The problem is that the Malcom Smith indictment invites the conclusion that access to public funds were the motivation for corruption, not the cure.
For those, unlike me, who think the Legislature is the problem, it was easy to say, "There they go again." The problem is that the outburst of indictments since 2010 suggests that the prior 20 years were relatively crime and corruption free. The "dysfunctional Legislature" crowd was never louder than in those days.
Only 5 percent of the Legislature gets in trouble. 33 percent of recent governors got into bad legal trouble, and 50 percent of comptrollers. Does anyone ever say the executive branch is dysfunctional?
For those who think the answer is a full-time Legislature, it was easy to say "Get rid of outside income and all will be well." The problem is that almost none of the indictments involved outside employment or business activity.
The best lessons may be the obvious and simple ones. More law enforcement will help weed out the criminals. The criminal behavior, bad as it is, isn't as destructive to the public interest as the legal behavior. Not every problem is solved by passing a new law.
Albany is more transparent and honest today than it was in the bad old days of Boss Tweed and powerful political leaders who ran things from county clubhouses.
There are things to be done. I would enact public financing with increased monitoring; give the attorney general's office public corruption responsibilities; increase pay for legislators, executive branch employees and judges; crack down on self-dealing member items — and hope for the best.
This stuff will never go away. We need less righteous indignation and more dispassionate reflection. It shouldn't be allowed to color our analysis of what the government is doing well or not so well.
There's enough cynicism as it is. And cynicism is, in the long run, more dangerous than corruption.
Richard Brodsky, formerly a state assemblyman, is a fellow at the Demos think tank in New York City and at the Wagner School at New York University.