Connecticut Governor Rowland Has to Go
John Rowland, the embattled Republican governor of Connecticut, went on TV last Wednesday night to tell his constituents that he had accepted gifts from businesses doing with state contracts and that he has been lying about it. It takes a certain integrity to make such an admission, and that should help him get a job in the private sector. If he won't jump, he should be pushed -- that is, resignation or impeachment.
The governor has a summer home by a lake, which was renovated at no cost by contractors who were working for the state at the same time. Was this a bribe? Was it the ever-loathed "pay to play" idea? Whatever, it looks bad. And in politics perceptions are as important as realities. But there's more. The US attorney in Hartford is looking into bribery allegations and has demanded his personal financial records.
Last year, Mr. Rowland's deputy chief of staff, Lawrence Alibozek, pleaded guilty to accepting "cash, gold and other items of value with the intent to be influenced and rewarded for taking favorable action for certain persons in connection with state business including business with the Department of Public Works," according to a US Department of Justice statement dated March 10, 2003. Also, last year, the state treasurer, whom Governor Rowland appointed, got 51 months in prison for taking bribes in exchange for putting state pension money in certain private equity funds.
"Innocent until proven guilty" are words over which one is prepared to kill, and Governor Rowland is still an innocent man until a court says otherwise. However, it is clear that he cannot do the job to which the people have elected him regardless of what happens now. If he is guilty of accepting bribes, he must go for breach of the public's trust. If he is not guilty, then he is clearly a man of dreadful judgment who should not be given the public's trust.
The choice now is between quick and painless, and slow and painful. Resignation would give the governor a modicum of respect as well as the time he will undoubtedly need to defend himself against the coming accusations from the media and perhaps from prosecutors. Impeachment and removal from office is the alternative, and while the result would be the same, it lacks a certain grace.
Home