Money in politics dislikes transparency

Politicians can think up excuses to say that special interest money does not affect them. They dislike being asked about this. They prefer to operate in secrecy so that voters 'don't get the wrong impression,' or see conflicts of interest when there are actual conflicts, etc. The excuses for opacity are endless. In the case of the US Supreme Court, the absolute need for secrecy of its decision-making are said by the court to be obvious, but no judge has ever articulated what those obvious reasons are. It's like porn, you can't describe it, but you know it when you see it.

The New York Times writes on one current example of political corruption in operation in an article entitled De Blasio Fought for 2 Years to Keep Ethics Warning Secret. Here’s Why.:  

When Bill de Blasio first took office as mayor of New York in 2014, he called two powerful real estate developers who had active projects in the city, and asked them to donate money to a nonprofit organization that he had created to advance his political agenda.

The request to help his nonprofit, the Campaign for One New York, seemed to violate the city’s ethics law, and a ban against asking for contributions from people who had business pending with the city. Within months of his solicitations, Mr. de Blasio was formally warned by the city’s Conflicts of Interest Board — in a previously undisclosed letter — not to repeat the behavior.

But even after that warning, the mayor continued to hit up well-connected donors for money, according to documents that the city has now released after years of an extraordinary legal campaign by the de Blasio administration to keep the documents secret.

The new details of Mr. de Blasio’s outreach to donors were contained in a pair of secret letters from the city’s Conflicts of Interest Board to the mayor. In the first letter, dated July 2014, the board said the mayor had violated ethics laws with his two fund-raising calls to developers and warned him not to do it again.

The second letter, sent in September 2018, found that Mr. de Blasio had continued the practice and included a forceful reprimand of the mayor. The letters were released this week, after the State Court of Appeals denied a final effort by the mayor’s office to keep the documents secret.

The city had, for more than two years, fought The New York Times’s efforts to obtain the board’s correspondence with the mayor, denying an initial Freedom of Information request and then fighting a lawsuit filed by The Times.

“By soliciting these three donations from firms with business pending or about to be pending before executive agencies,” the second letter said, referring to the mayor’s 2018 fund-raising efforts, “you not only disregarded the board’s repeated written advice, but created the very appearance of coercion and improper access to you and your staff that the board’s advice sought to help you avoid.”

The NYT goes on to point out that the mayor’s spokeswoman, Danielle Filson, said in writing statement that “the calls the mayor was making at this time were to support affordable housing legislation and his effort to achieve universal pre-K for every child in New York City, which is now a national model. He has consistently acted in good faith and followed the process set out for him. The board closed these cases and determined no enforcement action was necessary.” 

Filson also claimed that the mayor made “appropriate disclaimers” during his fund-raising calls. She asserted that potential donors were told that they would not benefit or be punished if they chose to give or not give money. But de Blasio did not do that.

One disappointing thing here is that, once again prosecutors flat out refused to prosecute a sitting politician. Some of the companies that broke lobbying laws were just wrist slapped with fines. When it comes to politicians and companies or rich people making illegal donations, the rule of law has mostly simply collapsed and vanished. Ethics is irrelevant. Laws are irrelevant. Democracy and the rule of law are crumbling before our eyes.

Another disappointing thing is that the NYT had to fight in court to get access to the two incriminating letters from the ethics board. If there was nothing to hide, then why did de Blasio spend tax dollars to fight in court to keep them hidden? 

Questions: 

1. Should campaign contributions be outlawed and public financing of major elected offices be made mandatory? Or, do campaign contributions affect nothing and are good because the cash is just innocent free speech?

2. Is de Blasio's assertion of acting in good faith plausible or more likely just a politician’s lie?