Bryant can't laugh
off latest abuse of power
EDITORIAL, the Home
News Tribune Online September 24, 2006
For years, state Sen. Wayne Bryant,
D-Camden, has snubbed his nose at anyone who dared criticize his conduct.
A powerful politician who represents the nation's poorest city and the state's
most enduring hell hole, he has ignored or laughed at reports chronicling his
abuses of the system and continued to behave brashly and badly — soliciting work
for himself and his relatives, twisting arms on behalf of his campaign, and
doling out millions as head of the Senate Budget Committee. It ought to
have been expected, however, that all of that would have come to a crashing halt
after a former federal judge looking into the abuses at the University of
Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey exposed the senator's surprisingly obvious
and undeniably odious methods.
The report concluded that Bryant's $35,000-a-year part-time job with the
university, which even on the face of things was extremely questionable, was
apparently little or nothing more than a quid pro quo. Bryant showed up
one morning a week for three years to read the paper; in exchange, he made sure
the university received millions more than it had in previous years. Not
one official interviewed about the job could recite any actual work Bryant had
done during his tenure. He had no boss; he filed no memos; he sent no
e-mails. As the judge put it, the university paid Bryant to "lobby
himself," and he did it extremely well.
There is little doubt the state has grown inured to corrupt politicians.
Even by those considerably low standards, however, official reaction to the
judge's report was terribly muted. There were the expected Republican
calls for Bryant's head, but among the Democrats only Gov. Jon S. Corzine was
bold enough to suggest that Bryant step aside from his leadership post.
Yet even he made no demands, saying it was a legislative issue.
Senate President Richard Codey, who as acting governor made ethics a top
priority, said Bryant ought to be given the benefit of the doubt. It's not
clear how much doubt there is in a report filed by an independent investigator.
There may or may not be criminal charges, but Bryant almost certainly has broken
the ethical bar set for the Legislature, let alone for the chairmanship of one
of its most powerful committees.
If Codey wants to give Bryant a chance to defend himself, then he ought to call
on the Joint Committee on Ethics to convene a hearing at the earliest possible
date. It is worth noting, of course, that Bryant himself seemed more
interested in hiding than in rebutting the allegations. Bryant was not
interviewed by the judge about his post at the university, has refused to answer
reporters' questions about it and, other than releasing a tepid denial
immediately after the report, has been neither seen nor heard since the report
was released.
The Legislature's ethics committee was coincidentally scheduled to meet this
past week, but that meeting was postponed. Democrats said the rescheduling
had nothing to do with the Bryant report, although they seem in no hurry to
reconvene. They are said to be considering scheduling another meeting
sometime in late October. The Bryant affair need not, and should not, drag
on all that time.
The problem with the Democrats' response thus far is that it gives the
impression that Bryant is not a corrupt senator, but simply the most obvious
practitioner of New Jersey's brand of power politics. That is an
impression the Democrats should endeavor to break, at least if they would like
to continue to be assured of votes on election days.
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