RALEIGH – Former Connecticut Gov. John Rowland was in Raleigh Tuesday to speak at a John Locke Foundation luncheon. His topic? The arrogance of power and the need for higher ethical standards among our leaders – be they in politics, business, religion, popular culture, or athletics.
His expertise? More than two decades of public service in state and federal office, plus about a year of service of a less-glamorous nature – in the slammer.
In 2004, the three-term Republican governor pled guilty to federal crimes in conjunction with a state corruption probe of influence-peddling allegations. After first denying any wrongdoing, Rowland later went on television to admit that he had received construction work on his vacation home from companies with state contracts, work for which he had not paid. Once a state legislative panel began considering articles of impeachment, Rowland’s attorneys negotiated a guilty plea to a federal count very similar to the one federal prosecutors are currently trying to prove in the Kevin Geddings trial here in North Carolina: the crime of denying the people of the state one’s “honest service,” in Rowland’s case by accepting gifts from firms doing business with the state without disclosing them for purposes of taxation and policing conflicts of interest.
While in prison, and during subsequent months of house arrest, Rowland had what can only be described as a religious experience. This was not the classic “jailhouse conversion,” since he had already been convicted and sentenced. It was, rather, a case of finding what he calls the “real power” that sustains a happy and purposeful life, as contrasted with the seductive power that politicians obtain and wield.
In his remarks, Rowland pointed out an important truth about public corruption: it always starts with the little things. First it’s something small, like a fruit basket or free meal. Then it escalates. Few public officials come into office full intending, while stroking their devilish goatees, to peddle their influence and rip off the taxpayers. Most of them have good intentions. But over time they come to feel underpaid, overworked, and underappreciated. They accept freebies because they feel entitled to them. This culture of entitlement, Rowland said, evolves within some politicians into a dangerous and self-destructive arrogance of power.
Rowland also discussed the limits of formal rules regulating the conduct of public officials, lobbyists, and other political actors. He didn’t suggest that rules weren’t important, or worth framing carefully and enforcing energetically – which I was glad to hear, being one of the founders of the North Carolina Coalition for Lobbying Reform. What Rowland meant was that no matter how tightly the rules are drawn, and how aggressively public officials are policed by the press, public-interest groups, and, well, the police, there is inevitably going to be loopholes and gray areas. There is still a need for public officials, whom we entrust with coercive power to tax and regulate us for legitimate ends, to make the right moral choices even if they can perceive no external constraints or penalties if they make the wrong choices.
Leaders need, as Rowland put it, a “tether” that keeps their inflated egos from floating away and binds them to an ethical code of public service, openness, and respect for others. He found it in a renewed, personal relationship with God – a relationship fostered and strengthened within a network of close, trusted friends and family.
I still believe that it is critical for policymakers to get the rules right, for reporters and researchers to expose apparent abrogation of the rules, and for law enforcement to pursue cases of apparent lawbreaking. But I also think Rowland makes an important point. Legislation may deter behavior. It cannot touch the human heart. That requires more power than any earthly authority can wield.
Hood is president of the John Locke Foundation.