In a paper published by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in 2013, then OECD Secretary General, José Angel Gurría Treviño said that “in all countries and at all levels of society, corruption threatens to distort social and economic interactions, reducing efficiency and increasing inequality by favouring the well-positioned.” (British spelling in original) He goes on to add, “as a result, the cost of doing business increases, public resources are wasted and the poor are pushed aside.” (see note one below)
Public corruption is usually a discussion point when talking about México and Cd. Juárez. Sometimes, the term is used when discussing El Paso’s high taxes. However, political corruption is seldom discussed in and about El Paso.
The 2013 OECD paper goes on to point out that it is estimated that between 5% and 10% of the Medicare and Medicaid budget “is lost to overpayment.” The Department of Health and Human Services found that $100 billion in improper payments were made in 2023. Public corruption is an issue facing Americans as well as people across the globe.
The FBI’s Operation Poisoned Pawns resulted in 41 people going to jail in a for-reaching public corruption scandal that began in 2004.
Transparency International defines corruption “as the abuse of entrusted power for private gain.” It goes on to explain that “holding the corrupt to account can only happen if we understand the way corruption works and the systems that enable it.”
Most understand that corruption is the quid pro quo between an elected official for a favor. Giving out preferential government contracts to favored business owners is mostly understood to be corrupt. But what about hiring people to fill a taxpayer funded position without allowing applicants to compete for the job? Is that corruption? Is selecting the best person to fill a needed government job for a specific reason, for example, expertise and experience that lives in the community the best use of public funds? Government jobs are to address specific government needs, like expertise on transborder trade. Isn’t someone with an extensive network of individuals in government positions that can quickly and efficiently be leveraged to facilitate a benefit to the community, better than a family friend to the individual filling the position? Some would argue that even if a public job that has specific needs, for example, marketing the government office may not need to be opened when a qualified former journalist is ready to fill the position without the expense of the hiring process. The problem lies in that if the individual was qualified for the position, then it stands to reason they would likely be hired anyway.
In the last municipal election, over $1 million was spent campaigning for mayor and other city council seats. It is yet unknown how much money was spent or raised for the municipal election because the final accounting will not be made public until January 15 when the next campaign finance reports are due. However, the last financial reports that were due eight days before the election show that $1.4 million was raised, an additional $286,500 was loaned by several candidates to their campaigns, and $1.6 million was spent to fill elected offices where city council members are paid around $45,000 annually and the mayor is paid around $67,000 a year.
This raises the question, why would a city council candidate risk $20,000 or more in an election for an elected office that, at best, would allow them to recover their investment in one year, or likely two to three years later? Where is the return-on-investment (ROI) for their money?
None of this addresses an issue often ignored by voters – corruption where a quid pro quo may not be obvious, or even exist but may be corrupt, nonetheless. For example, an elected official may not break any rules, but their constituents may feel victimized by corruption because it is clear the politician benefits somehow, even if it is building a public works that few taxpayers want.
To better understand this, we must first find common ground as to how to define political corruption, as opposed to public corruption.
Throffers
Most understand that exchanging money for a vote at the city council is corrupt. But what if no money changes hands? For example, an elected official votes on a measure due to offers and threats made to them.
Political philosopher Hillel Steiner coined the word “throffer” (see note two below) to define a situation where the choice between doing something for a benefit but not doing it carries a serious consequence. For an elected official, a troffer can simply be a matter of supporting public policy because the alternative would be a well-funded opponent in the next election.
Throffers are common in politics. They can be observed in situations where a longtime elected official suddenly faces an opponent funded by the same individuals that funded the politician before. In congressional races, this is known as “primarying” where an incumbent is challenged by the political apparatus because they lost favor within the party.
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When a small group of wealthy political benefactors work together to elect a slate of candidates with the goal to enact a unified public policy, the risk of throffers grows exponentially as running gets more costly and the source of political funding gets smaller.
Consider that in the November municipal elections, 17 individuals accounted for 27% of the total contributions made in an election that topped over $1 million in campaign expenses. At this point, throffers takes on a more important dimension when discussing public policy in El Paso.
How many of the elected officials dependent on the 17 individuals for their political futures are willing to ignore a request for the support of a public policy agenda important to one of the 17, or most of them?
Understanding that quid pro quo is not necessary for political corruption to flourish then it becomes easier to understand what political corruption is.
Political Corruption
Unlike public corruption, where a clear line between the one who gives the money to the one who provides the benefit – political corruption may not involve a direct financial benefit, nor does it require the exchange of cash.
Political corruption can be people who may not agree nor see a benefit for the actions of the politician. In its simplest terms, political corruption can be defined as a violation of the rules by a politician that is a detriment to the public good while benefiting the politician or another third-party who benefits from public policy that they were unlikely to get in an equal and open forum.
Political corruption can take many forms, some clearly seen as corrupt and others perceived to be corrupt but not clearly defined or understood. Defining political corruption becomes even more problematic as public-private governance becomes more prevalent.
Public-private governance blares the line between a governmental body and a private body performing a public good. The dichotomy between the public-private partnership becomes clearer when we look at the El Paso Children’s Hospital.
The nature of a private-public partnership has an inherent conflict of interest in opposition to open and transparent governance. The El Paso Children’s Hospital clearly demonstrates this when it is not transparent with the community it serves because it argues it is not a governmental body while shielding itself from legal scrutiny by arguing it is a public entity.
Recently, the El Paso Children’s Hospital succeeded in ending a malpractice lawsuit against it by arguing sovereign immunity while at the same time continuing to argue that they are not a public entity subject to open records under the Texas Public Information Act.
Thus, neither does the public have a right to examine the inner workings of the El Paso Children’s Hospital nor does it have the right to hold it accountable through the courts.
In essence, the private-public partnership leads to what Zygmunt Bauman defined as “sin without sinners, crime without criminals, guilt without culprits!” in his Postmodern Ethics book. (see note three below)
Public-Private initiatives are often portrayed as a benefit to the community in that they ostensibly leverage private monies for public goods.
But as Bauman articulated, “guilt without culprits” leaves no one to hold accountable for the deeds that benefit a third party at the expense of the public.
The conflict of interest, or better yet, the tension between the public good and the public-private initiative lacks transparency and accountability leaving open the potential for corruption that cannot be challenged through the legal process by the community threatened by it.
It is important to note that the judge who ruled to allow El Paso Children’s Hospital to both be immune from accountability through the court systems, while also allowing the hospital to keep public information behind closed doors serves in an elected position, making her vulnerable to throffers.
Annabell Perez was elected as the judge of the 41st District Court of Texas in 2012. Previously she was the Precinct 1 County Commissioner. She was reelected last November to another four-year term. Perez’s political future rests on the goodwill of people who help her win future elections.
As in the case of the El Paso Children’s Hospital, a clear line between those who funded a slate of candidates for the municipal office in El Paso in November and the elected officials which will be setting public policy for the next four years can be drawn. Many of the 17 who funded the slate of candidates benefit from favorable public policy.
Moreover, public-private partnerships for a proposed downtown deck park and the possibility of reviving a controversial sports arena whose proponents are among the 17 people who funded many of the candidates raises the question if political corruption is making its way through El Paso’s public policy agenda for the next four years.
Sources:
- Boosting Integrity, Fighting Corruption, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), 2013.
- Hillel Steiner, “Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 1974-1975, New Series, Vol. 75 (1974-1975), 39.
- Zygmunt Bauman, Postmodern Ethics, Blackwell Publishers, 1993, 18.