|
Arizona has never been known for squeaky-clean politics. Its elected officials have been embroiled in some of the mostsensational scandals of the past few decades, including the KeatingFive, AzScam and the alt-fuels fiasco. One governor was impeachedand removed from office while another resigned after being foundguilty of bank and wire fraud. A former U.S. congressman fromArizona has been awaiting trial for years on charges includingextortion, embezzlement and money laundering. But to some it seems Arizona has recently opened a new chapter inits raucous political history, as investigations and allegations ofcorruption and abuse of power have ensnared law-enforcementofficials and an unprecedented number of sitting lawmakers. Thetargets of inquiries have included some of the best-known politicalnames in the state: Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, formerMaricopa Attorney Andrew Thomas, Arizona Attorney General Tom Horneand Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu. On Wednesday, the latest shoe dropped: state Rep. Ben Arredondo,D-Tempe, was indicted on federal charges of bribery, mail fraud,extortion and lying. Federal prosecutors allege that Arredondo, aformer Tempe City Council member, took gifts such as priceyprofessional sports tickets in exchange for taking official actionon behalf of a phony company that actually was a front for the FBI. Arredondo previously was embroiled in yet another controversysurrounding gifts from the Fiesta Bowl to politicians. Arredondo's arraignment is scheduled for May 30 in U.S. DistrictCourt in Phoenix. Lee Stein, Arredondo's attorney, told The Arizona Republic last week that his side views the facts of the case "verydifferently than the government, but we'll do our talking incourt." While there always have and likely always will be crookedpoliticians along the lines of former state Rep. Richard Miranda,D-Tolleson, who quit the Legislature this year before pleadingguilty to federal felony wire fraud and attempted tax evasioncharges, longtime political observers say that the fact that somany law-enforcement officials are under investigation is a new anddisturbing trend that hurts the state's image and fuels publiccynicism about government. And they lament what they see as a general lack of leadership andpolitical will to address the situation. They long for the dayswhen Arizona had influential public officials such as the lateformer U.S. Sen. Barry Goldwater, R-Ariz., who famously informedPresident Richard Nixon that he couldn't avoid impeachment over theWatergate scandal and later called on scandal- and gaffe-prone Gov.Evan Mecham to resign. "The decibel level of what's happened recently is unprecedented inthe history of Arizona," said Jack August, a historian who haswritten several books about the state's politics. "It's almost likewe're a renegade state." For Arizona, that's saying something. Its legacy of corruption has its roots in the Wild West ofpre-statehood days and includes a series of unforgettable politicalscandals and crimes and a rogues' gallery of scoundrels. The 13thTerritorial Legislature misappropriated so much money in the 1880sthat it became immortalized in the history books as the "Thieving13th." In less-distant times, Don Bolles, an Arizona Republic reporter who made his name in the 1960s and 1970s exposing rampantcorruption in state government, was murdered in a car-bombing in1976. But August and other observers say that the combination ofhigh-stakes investigations now unfolding may eclipse even historicArizona episodes such as the 1988 impeachment and removal ofMecham, the 1997 criminal trial conviction of Gov. Fife Symingtonand legislative scandals such as the AzScam bribes-for-votesoutrage of the early 1990s and the alternative-fuels scandal. Each of those developments stunned the public at the time. ButMecham eventually was acquitted in a criminal trial whileSymington's conviction was overturned and a 2001 pardon fromPresident Bill Clinton ensured that federal prosecutors would notrefile charges against him. The late former state House Speaker Jeff Groscost, R-Mesa, also sawhis political career go up in fumes amid the controversy involvinghis role in alternative-fuels legislation that gave overly generousrefunds and tax rebates to consumers who purchased vehicles thatcould run on natural gas. The law, which wound up costing the stateabout $140 million, drove business to an alt-fuels company run by afriend and ally of Groscost's. Two of Arizona's U.S. senators -- Republican John McCain andDemocrat Dennis DeConcini -- got caught up in a national scandalrelated to their relationships with disgraced developer andfinancier Charles Keating. "There is a history here, but this is different," August said."This is much more high profile." High-profile cases In addition to the Arredondo indictment, other high-profile casesinvolve: Arpaio, a Republican who is being sued by President Barack Obama'sU.S. Department of Justice over accusations of racial-profiling andother civil-rights abuses related to his anti-illegal-immigrationoperations. A separate federal abuse-of-power investigation also isongoing. Thomas and his deputy Lisa Aubuchon, who were ordered disbarredApril 10 by an Arizona Supreme Court disciplinary panel for ethicalmisconduct in connection with prosecutions they launched againstother Maricopa County officials and judges. Rachel Alexander,another Thomas aide, had her law license suspended for six monthsand a day. Aubuchon and Alexander are appealing; Thomas is not. Horne, a Republican is under investigation by the JusticeDepartment for alleged illegal coordination with an independentthird-party group during his 2010 election campaign. Babeu, a Republican who until May 11 was running for Congress.Babeu and his agency are under investigation by three agencies,including the U.S. Office of Special Counsel that is looking intopossible violations of the federal Hatch Act, which makes itillegal for certain government employees to engage in partisanpolitics. Other investigators are looking into whether Babeu abusedhis power by threatening a former Mexican boyfriend withdeportation and whether the Sheriff's Office destroyed publicrecords. "Outside of Arizona, we certainly do have this image of instabilityand a kind of weirdness," said Bruce Merrill, a veteran pollsterand professor emeritus at Arizona State University who has followedthe state's politics for decades. Arizona's status as a fast-growing, youngish state -- it turned 100on Feb. 14 -- also could contribute to the chronic politicalturmoil and cavalier attitude about it, Merrill said. "We've never had a very stable population in Arizona, and I thinkthat kind of lends itself to what I call a frontier mentality," hesaid. Former Maricopa County Attorney Rick Romley told The Arizona Republic that concerns about public corruption are greater today than atany time during his career. As county attorney, Romley oversaw theAzScam sting that resulted in the 1991 indictments of seven statelegislators who took bribes from an undercover "wiseguy" policeinformant who pretended he was pushing for legalized gambling inthe state. After AzScam shook the political landscape, there was strongconsensus "that this was not acceptable conduct," Romley said.Today there is a stark attitude of "anything goes" in politics, hesaid, and seemingly no leaders a la Goldwater who appear inclinedto intervene and stop it. Goldwater's blunt talk with Nixon "took true strength of character,and we need some of our real strong leaders today to say, 'That'sit,' " Romley said. "But I don't think we have that today." Romley cautioned that the subjects of ongoing investigations shouldbe presumed innocent until proven guilty but said he is surprisedby some of the people accused of wrongdoing. "What's shocking to me today is that there are allegations ofpotential corruption by law enforcement," said Romley, who servedas county attorney from 1989 to 2004 and again on an interim basisin 2010. "That to me is a distinguishing difference. Whether it'sThomas, whether it's Horne, whether it's Arpaio, whether it's Babeu-- that to me changes the dynamics dramatically. Because that wasalways sort of our line of protection. We could always trust lawenforcement." Fiesta Bowl scandal Critics say the political response to the collegiate Fiesta Bowlscandal was lacking and another sign of a lackadaisical attitudetoward political corruption in Arizona. A 2009 Republic investigation found that Fiesta Bowl employees were reimbursed forcampaign contributions, which is illegal. The U.S. Attorney'sOffice, the FBI and the Internal Revenue Service are involved withthe case. It also turned out that numerous state legislators andother political leaders, including Arredondo, indulged in freebiesfrom the bowl. Lawmakers accepted travel and lodging but did notdisclose the gifts until after their names came up in the FiestaBowl's internal probe. Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomeryinvestigated but concluded that Arizona law was insufficient toprosecute them. After AzScam, lawmakers passed reforms, banning campaigncontributions from state lobbyists while the Legislature is insession, requiring lobbyists report gifts to legislators andmandating ethics training for themselves. Lawmakers concluded this year's legislative session withoutconfronting the Fiesta Bowl abuses, although the controversy didbecome an issue in the successful 2011 recall campaign againstArizona Senate President Russell Pearce, R-Mesa. "The Legislature hasn't done any self-correction, as it did withAzScam," August said. Arredondo is the fourth Arizona legislator to find himself inserious trouble this year. Three state lawmakers exited underclouds during the recently concluded legislative session: Mirandaand state Sen. Scott Bundgaard and state Rep. Daniel Patterson, whoboth resigned after being accused of domestic violence and whilefacing the prospect of expulsion. In another pending case, U.S. Rep. Rick Renzi, R-Ariz., wasindicted on federal corruption charges and did not seek re-electionin 2008. He is still awaiting trial. U.S. Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., whose nearly 26-year career in the U.S.House and U.S. Senate has been scandal-free, said he's been aroundlong enough to know that corruption investigations are not a newphenomenon and that the justice system eventually will straightenthings out. "These things go in cycles, and I've been through a lot ofgovernmental investigations in the history of the state ofArizona," Kyl said. "It seems like you have an era where people getcaught doing bad things, and they get punished and everybody shapesup for a while. After a while, people come to believe they can getaway with stuff, and they start trying it again. It happens thatway in Arizona and everywhere else." David Berman, a senior research fellow at ASU's Morrison Institutefor Public Policy, suggested that the state's aggressive lawenforcement -- and the investigations it has generated -- is linkedto opposition to illegal immigration. Arpaio, Thomas and Babeu allare closely associated with the issue, which drew the nationalspotlight after Gov. Jan Brewer signed Arizona's controversialimmigration-enforcement law in 2010. And Arpaio has long been amagnet for national media attention. "Unfortunately, you've got a very popular issue that they've beenable to ride, and that's anti-illegal immigration," Berman said."It's made law enforcement a priority, you could say, so that thepeople who are in that business feel that they've got a blankcheck, and they've just gone crazy, at least in the opinion of manypeople." Given that many Arizonans instinctively distrust the federalgovernment, Berman said, "if the feds get involved, it makes theguys who are doing wrong even more popular." "It all adds up to a pretty bad image of Arizona," he said. "Kindof a Western shootout mentality." A psychologist who studies the intersection of power, ethics andcorruption pointed to research for another possible explanation forthe preponderance of investigations involving Arizonalaw-enforcement officials. "People appear to be more willing to commit ethical transgressionsif they feel that it is in service of some higher purpose," saidJen Overbeck, a psychologist and assistant professor of managementand organization at the University of Southern California'sMarshall School of Business. "I'm not saying that they have goodintentions. It's just how people justify to themselves what therest of us see as some pretty heinous unethical actions." However, Overbeck doubted that Arizona is much worse than otherstates in terms of political corruption. A recent report by the Washington, D.C.-based Center for PublicIntegrity gave Arizona an overall grade of D+ for itssusceptibility to corruption and ranked the state 27th in thecountry. The report flunked Arizona in areas such as lobbyistdisclosure and ethics-enforcement. However, Georgia, Maine, Michigan, North Dakota, South Dakota,South Carolina, Virginia, and Wyoming got overall grades of F.Another report released this year by the University of Illinoisranked the worst 15 regions for public corruption and found theChicago and Los Angeles areas leading the pack. Washington, D.C.,led the report's top 10 list for federal public corruptionconvictions per capita. Arizona didn't make either list. "I have a feeling that everybody just looks at the amount of publiccorruption that occurs and feels that they have it worse thaneverywhere else, when there's really just a lot of corruptioneverywhere," Overbeck said. I am an expert from infusion-bag.com, while we provides the quality product, such as China Urine Bag , China PVC Infusion Bag, Infusion Bag,and more.
Related Articles -
China Urine Bag, China PVC Infusion Bag,
|
