Michelle
11-25-2006, 12:16 PM
Weighing Hevesi's ethical dilemma (http://www.newsday.com/news/opinion/ny-opbae244988899nov24,0,3458422.story?coll=ny-viewpoints-headlines)
Even if voters re-elected him as comptroller out of sympathy, he still must face justice
BY AMY R. BAEHR
Amy R. Baehr is an assistant professor of philosophy at Hofstra University. James Klurfeld is off.
November 24, 2006
New York State voters reelected Comptroller Alan Hevesi, a Democrat, by a wide margin earlier this month. They did this knowing he was under investigation for ethics violations and that he most likely broke the law when he used a state employee to chauffeur his disabled wife.
Does his reelection mean voters forgave him - by a 17-percentage-point margin? Does it mean that proceedings against him - the threat of criminal indictment and/or removal from office, which Gov.-elect Eliot Spitzer is likely to pursue - should be halted?
The answer to the second question is no. Hevesi does not deserve to hold office if he is guilty of breaking the law. This is what the law itself says.
Whether voters were ignorant of Hevesi's transgressions, or held their noses and voted for him as the lesser of two evils, or because they forgave him, is beside the point. It is not the voters' choice alone that determines who deserves to hold office.
Our system puts stock in a network of institutions, of which voting is a part. This network includes state law and the courts that interpret it, ethics commissions and the criminal justice system. The voters' choice can and should be undone by the courts if Hevesi is found guilty of breaking the law.
But if the rule of law is upheld, we might still worry that the bipartisan state Ethics Commission is being used as a political tool, and that equally troubling legal transgressions by members of the other major party are not being investigated. This still does not mean that Hevesi deserves to hold office. It means that others probably do not deserve their offices.
So this network of institutions often fails. The best we can do is design the parts to self-correct over time and make up for human weaknesses. Political associations like watchdog groups, and a free press, can play vital roles here.
Institutions can fail even when all involved mean well (think of fair criminal trials that end in punishment of the innocent). They are especially vulnerable when those responsible for them are willing to take advantage.
But is Hevesi just another unvirtuous politician? As much as his testimony before the state Ethics Commission revealed his willful obfuscation, it also revealed his touching and admirable concern for his wife. Is it possible that her vulnerability and Hevesi's concern for her touched voters?
Carol Hevesi appears to have suffered for years from heart disease, depression, chronic pain and other ailments. She is living in a nursing home. Hevesi said he needed to provide his wife a driver for security reasons. But the Ethics Commission found that the state police said his wife was a "low-threat" risk.
To be sure, Hevesi knew full well that security is an appropriate response only to real, external threats, of which there were none in her case.
As Hevesi would have it, "Security meant preventing her from falling down a flight of stairs" and giving her "peace of mind; that there's someone there in an emergency if she needs help, if the car breaks down, if she gets jostled, the whole range." It meant giving her "a sense of security."
Voters know what it is like to have a family member who needs such security. Very young, very old and disabled citizens depend on the care of others. Many voters also know how hard it is to provide needed care, how devastating it can be to families, derailing careers (usually women's) and draining family resources.
Voters know through personal experience that society is not an assemblage of separate, self-sufficient citizens. Perhaps voters identified with Hevesi's desire for his wife to be cared for and given some degree of autonomy despite her condition. Perhaps the voters desired to have the same kind of care for their dependent loved ones, or for themselves. Perhaps they saw that Hevesi was giving her what she deserved - what all dependent citizens deserve.
But why didn't Hevesi pay for the care himself? He knew he was not legally entitled to it because he'd been chastised for doing the same thing when he was New York City comptroller.
Perhaps Hevesi believes that tax money should be used to provide care and enhance the autonomy of dependent citizens and that dependency should not devastate families, threaten careers, exhaust personal resources. Perhaps the comptroller understands the particular impact dependency has on the poor and the middle class.
But I doubt this was his thinking. Instead of learning from his experience with his wife and encouraging lawmakers to address the issues her dependency raised, Hevesi simply took from the taxpayers to provide for his own family what so often is denied to others.
Even if voters re-elected him as comptroller out of sympathy, he still must face justice
BY AMY R. BAEHR
Amy R. Baehr is an assistant professor of philosophy at Hofstra University. James Klurfeld is off.
November 24, 2006
New York State voters reelected Comptroller Alan Hevesi, a Democrat, by a wide margin earlier this month. They did this knowing he was under investigation for ethics violations and that he most likely broke the law when he used a state employee to chauffeur his disabled wife.
Does his reelection mean voters forgave him - by a 17-percentage-point margin? Does it mean that proceedings against him - the threat of criminal indictment and/or removal from office, which Gov.-elect Eliot Spitzer is likely to pursue - should be halted?
The answer to the second question is no. Hevesi does not deserve to hold office if he is guilty of breaking the law. This is what the law itself says.
Whether voters were ignorant of Hevesi's transgressions, or held their noses and voted for him as the lesser of two evils, or because they forgave him, is beside the point. It is not the voters' choice alone that determines who deserves to hold office.
Our system puts stock in a network of institutions, of which voting is a part. This network includes state law and the courts that interpret it, ethics commissions and the criminal justice system. The voters' choice can and should be undone by the courts if Hevesi is found guilty of breaking the law.
But if the rule of law is upheld, we might still worry that the bipartisan state Ethics Commission is being used as a political tool, and that equally troubling legal transgressions by members of the other major party are not being investigated. This still does not mean that Hevesi deserves to hold office. It means that others probably do not deserve their offices.
So this network of institutions often fails. The best we can do is design the parts to self-correct over time and make up for human weaknesses. Political associations like watchdog groups, and a free press, can play vital roles here.
Institutions can fail even when all involved mean well (think of fair criminal trials that end in punishment of the innocent). They are especially vulnerable when those responsible for them are willing to take advantage.
But is Hevesi just another unvirtuous politician? As much as his testimony before the state Ethics Commission revealed his willful obfuscation, it also revealed his touching and admirable concern for his wife. Is it possible that her vulnerability and Hevesi's concern for her touched voters?
Carol Hevesi appears to have suffered for years from heart disease, depression, chronic pain and other ailments. She is living in a nursing home. Hevesi said he needed to provide his wife a driver for security reasons. But the Ethics Commission found that the state police said his wife was a "low-threat" risk.
To be sure, Hevesi knew full well that security is an appropriate response only to real, external threats, of which there were none in her case.
As Hevesi would have it, "Security meant preventing her from falling down a flight of stairs" and giving her "peace of mind; that there's someone there in an emergency if she needs help, if the car breaks down, if she gets jostled, the whole range." It meant giving her "a sense of security."
Voters know what it is like to have a family member who needs such security. Very young, very old and disabled citizens depend on the care of others. Many voters also know how hard it is to provide needed care, how devastating it can be to families, derailing careers (usually women's) and draining family resources.
Voters know through personal experience that society is not an assemblage of separate, self-sufficient citizens. Perhaps voters identified with Hevesi's desire for his wife to be cared for and given some degree of autonomy despite her condition. Perhaps the voters desired to have the same kind of care for their dependent loved ones, or for themselves. Perhaps they saw that Hevesi was giving her what she deserved - what all dependent citizens deserve.
But why didn't Hevesi pay for the care himself? He knew he was not legally entitled to it because he'd been chastised for doing the same thing when he was New York City comptroller.
Perhaps Hevesi believes that tax money should be used to provide care and enhance the autonomy of dependent citizens and that dependency should not devastate families, threaten careers, exhaust personal resources. Perhaps the comptroller understands the particular impact dependency has on the poor and the middle class.
But I doubt this was his thinking. Instead of learning from his experience with his wife and encouraging lawmakers to address the issues her dependency raised, Hevesi simply took from the taxpayers to provide for his own family what so often is denied to others.