Corroon to Herbert: Give Back Coal Cash
by Jeremiah Stettler
Salt Lake Tribune
Gov. Gary Herbert should return a $10,000 donation from a Utah coal company — whether or not that campaign cash influenced decisions to expedite the mine’s permit process.
So says gubernatorial challenger Peter Corroon, who called on the governor Thursday to put to rest perceptions of a “pay to play” policy in state government and order an independent inquiry into how the regulatory process was conducted.
Peter Corroon shouldn’t even have to be saying anything about this. Public outrage should be so severe as to embarrass Gov. Herbert into conceding that he has been caught red-handed in an act that would be considered a bribe in any situation but politics.
This is sleaze, pure sleaze! Here we have a governor of the state, an upstanding guy with an outstanding record of public service, engaged in low level slime, and pretending there is nothing wrong. With him it’s business as usual with the volume turned loud.
Don’t expect him to raise the ethics bar. He has become the poster boy for the Ethics Petition. In fact, if the ethics rules proposed by the Ethics Petition were in place he wouldn’t be in this sleazy position. He would have told the coal company that it is against the law to take donations. Currently it is not against the law, and thus politicians think it is moral and upright to get all they can get.
He has become cash hungry and seems to have lost his once common touch. As part of his $1,000,000 fund raising gala he accepted a $50,000 donation from a general contractor who does regular business with the state. Has politics literally turned him upside down? Has he decided that politics is the way to personal wealth? Yes, under the current campaign laws Herbert can spend all of that money for his personal use, and he can buy political votes by donating it to other candidates. With a million bucks he can be the main campaign contributor to every legislator he wants, and he can buy leadership positions for them. What a mess we have.
Who supports this kind of political business? Will they please step forward and publicly declare that there is nothing wrong with this kind of politics? Will they please step forward and tell us there is no taint on that money? Will they please step forward with their wife and children on their sleeve and declare that this is honest politics at its best? Will they please step forward and say this is what we want our kids to grow up to be? Or will they please step forward and say that being governor of the state requires this type of conduct, that politics is just dirty business and we should get used to it? Should we just accept the idea that we need a governor who can roll in the dirt with the best of them?
One thing is to his credit. You can tell he is new to the charade. It’s not very often that the exchange of services and payment take place on the same day. Most veteran politicians know that the longer the time between receiving the cash and providing the service the better it is for public consumption. This one was pretty damn clumsy.
When he first entered politics is was with an altruistic motive. He did many good things as a genuine problem solving country commissioner. He didn’t even need campaign money. He was elected on his merits. Now it appears that he is in it for the money.
“Public trust matters and the appearance of impropriety matters,” the Democratic Salt Lake County mayor wrote in a statement. “The public needs to have confidence that their elected officials and government make decisions in an open, honest and transparent fashion.”
The governor’s chief of staff, Jason Perry, rebuked Corroon for what he described as an “unjustified and inaccurate attack for the sole purpose of political posturing.”
“It is deeply offensive,” he said.
“For the sole purpose of political posturing? Give me a break Mr. Perry! Corron has been supportive of ethics reform from the beginning. This is his posture, as a candidate and as a non-candidate!
The offense comes from Herbert, not Corroon! The only people not offended by this escapade are those who have seen it so much they have just accepted it as one of the vicissitudes of life, a regrettable, but unchangeable defect of the political system.
What needs to be done is for Governor Herbert to change his mind and support the Utahns For Ethical Government petition. If it had been in place he wouldn’t be in this awkward mess.
The controversy lies in a campaign contribution the Republican governor received last fall from Alton Coal Development.
On Sept. 17, the same day that Herbert’s campaign cashed a $10,000 check from the company, Alton officials met with the governor to complain that regulators were taking too long to issue a strip-mining permit.
As a “result” of that meeting, according to a memo from the Utah Division of Oil, Gas and Mining, regulators sped up the process. The permit was to be completed on Oct. 15, three months earlier than required by law. But the Governor’s Office insists the target date was set before Herbert ever met with Alton Coal — a position corroborated by John Baza, director of the mining division, who said he relayed information about the governor’s meeting to his staff to ensure the deadline was met.
The governor had no knowledge of Alton’s contribution, Perry says, and the campaign’s decision to cash the company’s check on the day of the meeting was an “unfortunate” coincidence.
So does Herbert plan to give back the money?
“The answer is no,” Perry said. “The governor has no intention of returning the check because nothing improper happened before, during or after that meeting.”
Mr. Perry, that $10,000 check didn’t go into Herbert’s pocket because he was one of the Haitian victims, or because he is a good guy. It went into his pocket for a clear and distinct purpose, for consideration of services rendered or to be rendered.
We concede that it is very difficult for a politician to maintain personal integrity, and that very few have been able to do it. Politics is a worthy endeavor, but the system is corrupting. Many good people avoid politics because they are unwilling to make the ethical compromises that it seems to require. The few good people who decide to walk through the mine field have to be ethical gymnasts to maintain their previous precious integrity.
Some are able to rationalize the situation by ‘doing the best they can do’ and almost all politicians are in that category. They perceive themselves to be honest and that they don’t make any decisions or take any actions for a campaign donor that they wouldn’t do for Joe Blow. They conclude that others have done it and that it can’t be done any differently, that the rules of ethics for politicians are simply different and that’s the way it is. An old movie starring Nick Nolte, had a line describing the twisted ethics politicians have to face as — ‘The Burden of Leadership.”
Let’s reduce the burden and pass ethical laws so that it is easier for the honest politician to abide Abstinence Only and Just Say “No!”
That’s the wrong decision, according to Corroon.
“The perception is that you have to pay to play,” he wrote. “Utahns deserve a leader who will get rid of those perceptions.”
