Posted on 12/17/2004 11:53:10 AM PST by weegee
Events of the past week reminded me of the wisdom of the late Bill Crane, one of my political science professors.
Crane wrote a popular textbook on Texas politics. Needless to say, he understood political corruption, and divided it into two types.
It wasn't Democrat and Republican. This was before Texas Republicans had enough power to be corrupt.
Crane's distinction was between Catholic corruption and Protestant corruption.
He wasn't talking theology, but sociology. His use of the term "Catholic" was shorthand for immigrant groups that arrived relatively recently: Irish, Italians, Mexicans, and so on.
The "Protestants" were the moneyed and educated establishment.
The difference, he said, was that the Protestants understood the value of delayed gratification. They knew that if they kept their noses relatively clean during their time in public office they would be able to cash in afterwards.
It might be by becoming a lobbyist, as many retired congressmen and legislators do. It might be by becoming head of a big company with lots of government contracts. (Dick Cheney is a Methodist.)
Catholics, said Professor Crane, didn't trust the system. They needed to cash in while in office. New York's Boss Tweed was something of a prototype.
I've lived in New York, and also in Boston, St. Louis and San Antonio. All are chock full of Catholic immigrants and have long traditions of what Crane would classify as Catholic political corruption. Cash under the table.
I don't know what church Oliver Spellman attends. But the former chief of staff for former Mayor Lee Brown yesterday confessed political Catholicism to the tune of the pittance of $2,000.
But I'm happy to say that Spellman is not representative of the spirit of Houston.
Houston is more sophisticated than that. In fact, Houston is so entrepreneurial that it has honed its own hybrid form of political corruption.
It is a form much more legal and more lucrative than primitive, papist bribery.
And yet it doesn't require Protestant patience.
A colleague of mine described it as the "three-cornered deal," and it has been raised to a high art by County Commissioner El Franco Lee.
Lee's methodology was laid out by reporter Dan Feldstein.
Back when he was a legislator, Lee and a partner set up an engineering firm. Now Lee isn't an engineer, but engineers work for him.
Lee is not so crude as to have his engineers do work for the county, even though the county hires a lot of engineers.
But companies that do work for the county have found it attractive to hire his firm to do other work.
In the most recent case, Commissioner Lee voted in favor of hiring the engineering firm of Turner Collie & Braden to do work on a portion of the Fort Bend Parkway that will run through Lee's precinct in Harris County.
Turner Collie & Braden did not hire Lee's engineering firm, Espa, to work on that stretch.
It hired Espa to do $430,000 worth of work on the adjacent stretch in Fort Bend County.
Turner Collie & Braden CEO Jim Royer, as expected, denied his firm hired Espa to get tight with Lee. It was also to be expected that he would say it was because Espa did great work. But Royer was more refreshing than that.
"El Franco has a good relationship with Grady Prestage," Royer said, referring to the Fort Bend county commissioner through whose territory the road runs. "It seemed like a good idea."
Lee is unembarrassed.
"I abide by all the rules, in spirit and in fact," he told reporter Feldstein.
I believe him, though I think the rules he refers to are unwritten and he's hardly alone in following them.
Royer was asked if anyone told him to hire Espa.
"You can figure that out without being told," he said.
The spirit to which Lee refers is the spirit of Houston. He's simply applying the city's entrepreneurial ethic to politics.
You can write to Rick Casey at P.O. Box 4260, Houston, TX 77210, or e-mail him at rick.casey@chron.com.
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Can you say Metro Light Rail boys and girls?
I knew you could.
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