[Libertarian] Reasons to be cynical of politicos

[marc guttman]

 Thursday, March 02, 2006 
Denver, CO

Article Launched: 03/02/2006 1:00 AM MST

david harsanyi | staff columnist
Reasons to be cynical of politicos
By David Harsanyi
Denver Post Staff Columnist






Not yet cynical about Colorado politics? You must not have read the paper these 
past few weeks. 
Let's start with the selfish. House Minority Leader Joe Stengel may not have 
committed a crime when he took an estimated $27,000 in per-diem pay, but he 
sure did fleece taxpayers. 
In his defense, Stengel, a Republican, says he believes that the laws were "far 
too ambiguous" (a fiscal conservative practicing fiscal responsibility is 
ambiguous?) and in customary bureaucratic fashion came up with a solution. 
Change the law. In other words: Protect lawmakers from their own shaky 
predilections. 
Travis Nicks is chairman of the Libertarian Party of Colorado. Since the chance 
of libertarians being corrupted by power is zilch, I solicit his opinion. 
"It's called public service," he explains. "Politicians need to maintain that 
they are in the service of the public. That is their job. This sort of abuse is 
rampant, this occurs often, it's becoming accepted behavior." 
How about the hypocritical sort? House Majority Leader Alice Madden - a leader 
in a party that consistently advocates limiting free political expression 
through campaign-finance reform - refuses to extend the courtesy of basic 
transparency to voters. 
Who's behind the group Research and Democracy, which donated more than $80,000 
to various Democrats, including Madden? We don't know. It's a secret. 
"The cause of these things is because of the power government currently holds. 
With transparency and freedom of expression through campaign money, you can put 
people into office and hold them accountable," Nicks explains. "Let the rich 
donors donate; if we know who donates, that's fine. And if the person gets 
elected and we see it, it obviously gives us the opportunity to fix the 
problem." 
Sometimes you have to wonder: Is it utter cluelessness or your garden-variety 
corruption? Democratic Sen. Deanna Hanna demanded that the Colorado Association 
of Realtors pay her "reparations." 
Hanna thought the money she was asking for was "a rather small price to pay for 
creating a fracture in my relation with your organization. It is my hope that 
you will make our relationship whole again. There are going to be some very 
important issues ahead of us. You have a choice. So 
do I." 
Let's dispense with rationalizations and call this what it is: extortion. 
Senate Majority Leader Ken Gordon, a fellow Democrat, made a formal complaint 
against Hanna and wrote that by any "reasonable interpretation," Hanna's letter 
"was attempting to put the Realtors in fear that she would not be supportive of 
their interest in the 'important issues ahead' if they did not make the 
contribution. ..." 
Gordon, not someone you'd label a nonpartisan player, could have wished it 
away. Waited it out. Instead, he showed some backbone. 
It's not that partisanship is necessarily a bad thing. The last thing we need 
are more mealy-mouthed moderates who abandon principles - if they ever had any 
- for political expediency ... which brings us to Colorado's junior U.S. 
senator. 
One wishes Ken Salazar would learn a lesson from Gordon. 
In January, Salazar rode shotgun as Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid 
campaigned in Colorado for moderate Democrats. 
Coincidentally, that same month, Salazar was also named to the Senate Ethics 
Committee. He immediately called for investigations of Republicans who had 
dealings with disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff. 
Fair enough. 
But, to quote Salazar: "It is important for us to uphold the rule of law, no 
matter who it is that's involved, no matter how close those friends of yours 
might be." 
Sounds great, if only it were true. 
Soon enough, the fact that Reid may have taken more than $60,000 from Abramoff 
clients was exposed. 
Not a peep from our senator. 
David Harsanyi's column appears Monday and Thursday. Reach him at 303-820-1255 
or [EMAIL PROTECTED] 

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]



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