In a democracy, people get the kind of government they deserve. As clichéd as that statement sounds, its verisimilitude was demonstrated yet again with the hung jury in the corruption trial of suspended DeKalb County CEO Burrell Ellis.
While not wishing to second-guess the jurors in their review of the facts, reports suggesting that several jurors were reluctant to convict Ellis simply because of his pleasant demeanor, concern about ruining his life or sympathy for him are outrageous. I say this as a former defense attorney, 90 percent of whose clients were in the legal system solely because they were poor, dumb or unlucky. The overwhelming majority of them deserved sympathy, but rarely received it.
Ellis was not and is not one of those people. Ellis, who attended an Ivy League college and is a lawyer, was not on trial because of circumstances beyond his control; he was on trial because he allegedly chose to cajole and threaten companies doing business with the county into making campaign contributions. That claim alone should have generated outrage and condemnation. Ellis was not on trial as a private citizen. His trial was about abuse of power as an elected governmental official. The absence of outage at the mere thought of his alleged extortions is disturbing, distressing and disgusting.
Currently ranked last in the nation in governmental ethics — beating out such big names as Illinois — Georgia has experienced, and is experiencing, several high-profile corruption scandals. The Atlanta Public Schools cheating scandal; a governor who enriched himself through his company’s no-bid contracts with the state; numerous examples of self-dealing and misappropriation of funds in Gwinnett County; and the stench surrounding the planned Cobb County stadium are only the tip of a vast, loathsome iceberg of corruption and putrescence that befouls our state and upon which we risk foundering the ship of government.
Where are the good people of Georgia on this? Where is the outrage? Where is the shame? Far too many people seem to think that they can fence themselves off from it by incorporating new cities and isolating themselves. Although there may be good reasons for incorporation, walling ourselves off in the hope that it will protect us from corruption is not the answer. The stench of corruption wafts over and through those walls and permeates everything.
Where are the religious leaders? Where were the churches, temples, synagogues and mosques when the legislature debated the ethics bill? When the budget committee debated funding ethics enforcement in the state?
Preachers and ministers, whose duty is call out sin and denounce evil, who are quick to judge the weak, must not stand silently in their pulpits and collude as the powerful lie, cheat and steal. They must not have 20/20 vision only in seeing the sinners across town, but have beams in their eyes when it comes to the well-dressed, clean-shaven sinners in their pews who pilfer the public coffers. Their vision fails them if they peruse scripture and do not take to heart the passage in Deuteronomy 16:19-20 that reads, “Thou shalt not pervert judgment; thou shalt not respect persons; neither shalt thou take a gift; for a gift doth blind the eyes of the wise, and pervert the words of the righteous. Justice, justice shalt thou pursue …” That donation for a new wing of the building or the increase in the clergyperson’s salary could and too often do become the gifts that blind and pervert their words. I could multiply texts, and unfortunately, examples.
We have corruption in Georgia government because we allow it, those of us sitting in the pews, leaning over our voting machines and reading the newspaper. Everyone who treats ethics charges as partisan politics and overlooks the common good increases the putrefaction of our body politic. The stench attaches to her or him.
The time has come to say enough. Clean government has no party, no color, no ideology, other than the belief that government should be fair, honest, transparent and just. Clean government demands that politicians should not use the public purse for private gain and that all should have equal access to their legislators.
It is time that the people of Georgia rise up and demand not merely stronger ethics laws — lower limits on gifts, greater disclosure and more openness — but also stronger enforcement: greater independence of ethics commissions, stronger investigative powers and more funding. Until then we shall continue to have the kind of government we deserve, one filled with crooks, criminals and cowards.
