After the verdict, Council President Darrell Clarke released a statement expressing sadness, and conceding that “we have heard both testimony and wiretap recordings that cast serious doubt on the integrity of our legislative body.” There were a lot of seemingly timid, finger-to-the-wind souls, including mayoral wannabes Cherelle Parker, Allan Domb, Rebecca Ryhnhart, Jeff Brown, and Derek Green. Would that be so hard? Yet we’ve heard hardly anything of the sort from the usual suspects. I’m pro-union, but it’s clear that we now have an opportunity to clean up our politics so they finally really serve working men and women.” You’d think that, after hearing the wiretaps in the latest trial-a juror proclaimed the testimony “appalling”-our elected officials would, if not show up to support the reforms of Solomon and Quiñones-Sánchez, at the very least tweet something like this: “The trial of John Dougherty and Bobby Henon demonstrated the dangers of allowing private interests to unduly influence public matters. Barnum is said to have observed that there was one of you born every minute, Philly taxpayer. Who knows how much you’re really into them for? P.T. Lest you think all these backroom machinations don’t affect you, keep in mind the 2014 study from Indiana University and the University of Hong Kong, which found that the average Pennsylvanian pays a $1,300 yearly “corruption tax.” That was seven years ago, long before Seth Williams, Kathleen Kane, Movita Johnson-Harrell, Dougherty, Henon and countless others stole from you. RELATED: Larry Platt on what good can come from the Dougherty-Henon trial You can’t call a councilperson and instruct them to shut down an installation of an MRI machine that used non-union labor, can you? Can you call your councilperson and tell them to secure your friends jobs when he negotiates the city’s cable franchise deal? We’ve just gone through a trial-complete with wiretap recordings that could have been taken from the Bada Bing- that showed the extent to which your government had been hijacked to serve Dougherty’s ends. The lead story, in other words, should have been about who was not in that City Hall courtyard. It’s that a mayor, ever loyal to his disgraced political benefactor, shamefully suggested he has “an opinion” that differs from the jury’s-a slap in the face to every citizen of the city. It’s that no other elected official joined them. The story this week was not that Solomon and Quiñones-Sánchez were speaking up. It’s always Groundhog Day when it comes to municipal corruption in Philadelphia. We see the pattern in our history-our halcyon days of reform, under Richardson Dilworth and Joe Clark in the 1950s, lasted all of 11 years in 2007, Michael Nutter cleaned up pay-to-play in City Hall, but in the years since, we’ve again reverted back to our mean. The mayor, ever loyal to his disgraced political benefactor, shamefully suggesting that he has “an opinion” that differs from the jury’s-is a slap in the face to every citizen of the city. And soon we’re off to the next headline du jour. Other pols, terrified of violating an Omertà-type code, remain silent. Good government types suggest systemic fixes-tweaks, really. A pol is carted off in handcuffs or convicted. Call me jaundiced, but we’ve seen this movie before. “The People Over Politics Petition starts new conversation around Philly corruption reform,” wrote Al Día. “Government Watchdog Groups, Elected Officials Call for Reform in Philly,” blared NBC10. “City Council Will Debate Limits on Outside Employment in Wake of Bobby Henon’s Bribery Conviction,” read the Inquirer headline. The news coverage of the press conference was… dutiful, and missed the real story. They announced their “People Over Politics” petition and a plank of three modest (yet, sadly, still unlikely) reforms in the aftermath of the recent corruption conviction of labor leader John Dougherty and Councilmember Bobby Henon. Talk about missing the story.Earlier this week, State Representative Jared Solomon and City Councilmember Maria Quiñones-Sánchez joined good government groups like Committee of Seventy ( now helmed by Al Schmidt), Common Cause, and the League of Women Voters for a press conference outside City Hall. Golden, Corruption: What Everyone Needs to Know That is, you need a critical mass of disapproval to be effective. Not only would denunciations lead to social disapproval and perhaps even physical danger, they don’t do much good unless others join in. In a society where corruption is common, few dare to speak out against it on their own.
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