N.J. firms blast
Trenton over lax ethics
By GREGORY J. VOLPE,
thnt Online, November 29, 2007
TRENTON — One small-business
owner felt pressured to buy tickets for a county official's birthday party to be
eligible to bid on a contract.
Another contractor reported that a Garden State Parkway official implied a bribe
was needed to get work.
A trade-association leader lamented that it costs too much to run for the
Legislature.
Those were among the anonymous stories compiled by principal investigator Barrie
Peterson in a study released Wednesday by the Prudential Business Ethics Center
at Rutgers University that found strong disgust from the business community on
how government is run in New Jersey and recommended several steps for state
leaders to take including a complete pay-to-play ban, a uniform ethics code and
a bipartisan commission modeled after the federal 9/11 Commission to identify
and cure the ethical problems in the state.
"It's self-evident that the special interests and self-interests consistently
prevail over public virtue and the citizens' agenda, that's the bottom line,"
said Raymond Bramucci, director of the center, a Democrat who used to work for
Gov. James J. Florio, U.S. Sen. Bill Bradley, D-N.J., and President Clinton.
Bramucci, who quit his voluntary post as chairman of the Legislature's ethics
panel to take the $120,000 position with the business-ethics center earlier this
year, decried that the public good is often forgotten in Trenton.
"Businessmen and community leaders believe that merit becomes the least
important thing, candor becomes a lost art," Bramucci said. "Transparency,
showing your cards, dealing with these terribly complex issues honestly is what
we seem to need and which is sorely lacking."
The report also called for two additional studies that would examine corruption
from unique angles — how much the so-called "corruption tax" boosts the cost of
government in New Jersey and a study of corrupt New Jersey officials to see if
there are correlations with things like holding multiple offices, running in
safe districts or length of service.
Peterson said a collaboration of Seton Hall and Rutgers law schools have already
begun work on the latter and may produce a report within months, but he hasn't
yet found an economist willing to tackle the oft-speculated, but hard-to-tackle
question of how much corruption costs taxpayers.
Regardless of that number, business leaders hope the report spurs action.
"From a business perspective, our members have always been concerned about the
reputation of this state," said Jim Leonard, senior vice president for
government relations at the New Jersey Chamber of Commerce. "A bad reputation is
bad for business."
Sen. Thomas H. Kean Jr., R-Union, the incoming Senate minority leader, said he
hopes Democrats who control the Statehouse listen to the bipartisan report.
"I have been optimistic for the last several years that the majority party would
keep their word, but as the months and years go by they haven't," Kean said.
"This bipartisan report again shows the need to rid New Jersey of corruption and
to make our state affordable again."
Lilo Stainton, a spokeswoman for Gov. Jon S. Corzine, said the governor has and
will continue to push ethics reform.
"Gov. Corzine's ethics agenda is well-established, from his creation of a
comptroller to contracting reforms at the state authorities," Stainton said via
e-mail. "The governor is committed to curbing corruption and improving the
business climate in New Jersey and will continue to push forward on both goals."
Respondents identified causes of corruption as a selfish culture, lack of
state-based television media and voter apathy and cynicism.
Specific cures include an expansion of publicly funded elections, a total ban of
pay-to-play trading of campaign donations for contracts, a uniform code of
ethics for all public officials and eliminating the grandfather clause to the
dual-office holding ban that goes into effect in February.
gvolpe@app.com
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