Diogenes looking for an honest man
A friendly reader shot me an email in response to yesterday’s post.
This reader took exception and questioned why I referred the misconduct of a State government official to the Office of Attorney Ethics (OAE), instead of some government agency with authority over State officials. This reader wrote:
how do you know office of atty ethics handles actions by govt employees. it may only handle attorneys in private practice or those before supreme court. you are complaining about a govt employee action. who to your knowledge keeps govt employees honest and govt agencies honest at the nj state level? who is supposed to do that? anybody?
So I clarified my reasons for going to OAE. Basically, there is no other State agency with jurisdiction to address the misconduct I was troubled by: the AG’s Office of Public Integrity enforces criminal misconduct, and there was no crime involved. The State Ethics Commission enforces the State Ethics law, which does not regulate the conduct I was troubled by. So I went to OAE to address the conduct via professional ethics.
The reader was not satisfied with that response, and fired off this comment:
is there a law that should be in place where citizens outraged by lies can file. maybe we need new laws on the outrageous conduct of govt employees?
Hahhahaaha! Imagine that! That Office would have one hell of a tremendous workload!
But instead of laughing it off, I provided a serious closing observation of what should have happened to DEP Commissioner LaTourette, if we had a functioning democracy, which saddens me:
The legislature could conduct oversight and censure him, but both Houses are controlled by D’s so they won’t.
The Governor could reprimand or fire him, but he won’t because the lies protect the Gov. politically.
The entire DEP Management Team could resign in protest or blow the whistle, but they won’t because they have cushy jobs making good money with great benefits and a pension.
The press could expose him and criticize the lies, but they won’t because they too are corrupt and lazy and stupid and they don’t see reporting on and correcting lies as their job.
Environmental groups could call him out but they won’t because they too are either stupid or corrupt and want to keep the Foundation and DEP grant money flowing.
Disgusting all around.
No integrity anywhere.
And so it goes.