How corrupt is Houston/Harris County government? Is this the beginning of the end for Houston?
Examples of corrupt government officials keep popping up. Luckily for the officials in charge, stories of corruption are suppressed and quickly fade away. Let’s be honest with ourselves. Most of us do not follow local politics very closely at all. We are fat and happy until bad things happen that profoundly affects us like crime, economic decline, utility outages, or out of control tax bills. When it gets to that point, it is usually too late.
Here are the recent examples. Mayor Sylvester Turner’s longtime aid resigned after pleading guilty to federal bribery charges. Prior to that, Houston Housing Director (former) charged the mayor with creating a culture of corruption as he pushed a large housing development contracts to his friends. Last year, Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo had the Texas Rangers seize evidence and charge three aids over improperly directing millions of dollars in Covid money to a friend. After angry words from Turner and Hidalgo, these cases somehow fade away as well as any talk of institutionalized corruption even with this evidence of corruption at the highest levels of government. Turner and Hidalgo are both Democrats and Democrats have complete control of Houston and Harris County. Governments, like fish, rots from the head down, so evidence of high-level rot should not be ignored.
Put this in perspective. Would you put your entire life savings in an investment firm that has the right hand man of the CEO convicted of corruption? No, you wouldn’t. An investment firm or bank that has corruption appear at the highest levels of the organization usually goes out of business. However, Democrat office holders and the Democrat party seem to be immune from scrutiny.
How do corrupt officeholders and party machines survive and thrive in big cities? That is a good question for an open, honest debate. Certainly, as mentioned, most people do not know what goes on in local politics. The lazy citizen is a culprit for sure, but there are deeper root causes. The press and media should be standing up to the powerful and informing the public. It seems that the public gets one or two stories about dirty politicians, then the story goes away. The press can say they covered the story, even though the ”one-and-done” practice minimizes the stories. Citizens are ultimately culpable. The people get what they want if they really demand it. Instead, of running off corrupt politicians, they close their minds and regularly re-elect them.
Sadly, the excuses of the dirty politician or political machine are effective. It is easy to dismiss examples of corruption by saying that it is a rare exception, not indicative of the entire government. That has been an effective defense, but unless there is a thorough investigation to prove corruption is the exception and not the rule, no one should be satisfied. There is too much at stake. Another defense is the “innocent until proven guilty” basis of our legal system. If our local legal system is run by friends and cronies of the corrupt politician, there is little chance of justice. This is the institutionalized corruption of the police, prosecutors, and judges (more on this in a subsequent article). That scenario never ends well for the citizens.
A corrupt city or county government under long term single party control has created a wasteland of formerly great cities (see Detroit, Chicago, San Francisco, Baltimore, etc.) After corrupt single-party rule sets in, the citizens are helpless. The state legislature could step up and require all entities who take state money, to have completely publicly open, easily searchable financial records including contracts and all major expenditures. The FOIA process now in place is a system where the public can request records is a joke of delays, redactions, and diversions. When there is no transparency, corruption should be assumed. If things do not change, the state will eventually fall to the corrupt cities like what happened in Illinois. It is up to us. We must all wake up and save Houston before it is too late.
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