TGPLAN Interview
What is TGPLAN?
TGPLAN is a project all AGS sophomores complete. It stands for think globally, plan locally, act neighborly. The idea of the project is to identify a global issue on a local scale, and take action against it. My group tackled the issue of political corruption. For the first step of the project we had to interview an expert on the topic. Since there's no such thing as an expert on political corruption, I found someone to interview who would know about corruption. I interview State Representative Chris Turner, who has worked to pass several laws encouraging transparency in politics. Below is my transcript to our interview. From TGPLAN I was able to recognize ways to help reduce political corruption.
The interview demonstrates the pillar Recognize Perspective because I can accurately interpret an author's perspective on a global topic or issue. I can also discuss another perspective on the same global topic or issue.
Interview Transcript
Do you think political corruption is a pressing issue in today’s world? Why or why not?
Yes I do. You know, one of the problems in in the united states is a lot of people have lost confidence in our electoral system and our system of government. Because a lot of times unfortunately, many people think all politicians are corrupt. It doesn't matter what's right, what's wrong, but that special interests just control everything and the system is inherently broken. There is some truth to that sentiment. And because we see unfortunately these stories of corruption in politics, whether it's corruption related to money. We've seen these members of congress over the years that have had to resign because you know we found out they were taking bribes or doing inappropriate things for campaign donors. And I think closer to home, in Texas we have an attorney general, under indictment for a variety of stuff including financial crimes. And then you see the, what's going on right now with the investigation into the president and whether or not his campaign colluded with Russia, and there's potentially a lot of money involved there. So all of those things contribute to people being disillusioned with the political process and that's not healthy for democracy. It doesn't mean people shouldn't participate, cause they should, and that's the only way to change it, it's for people to participate and vote.
In your opinion, what is the most common form of corruption or dishonesty in politics?
It's a good question, you know I think it depend on what you consider to be corruption. Some people would justifiably say that people who accept campaign contribution from certain special interests of businesses or individuals with certain interests either act on behalf of campaign contributors to do something or to not something depending on what the contributor wants then that is corruption. Now what I just described in itself is not illegal. You know for instance and in a lot of cases there is nothing wrong with it. Now I'll give you an example where it's not wrong, where I think it is wrong, it's so hard to approach. You know for instance, I'm supported by virtually every teacher's organization. You know the public school teachers, there's basically four or five different teacher's associations and they all support me because I have been in general a big supporter of public education and of teachers. Now because I'm a big supporter of education and teachers I'm never going to vote to create a private school voucher or program or to take money out of public schools, um and the reason I'm not going to do that is I believe that is the wrong policy for a state. I think it would be a bad thing for texas but someone could say you know the reason Chris doesn't support you know, a voucher program is because he's supported by all these big teacher organizations and they give money to his campaign. And the truth is no that's not the reason I'm going to, it's about policy. But people are gonna make that allegation. But it may appear to be corrupt and I give you a very contemporary example of the other side of that. There's you know calls from high school students in Florida and around the country for congress to pass new gun laws in light of the shooting in Parkland two weeks ago and we're seeing that there's a lot of push back to congress doing that and a lot of it is coming from the National Rifle Association and people will say because the NRA is so influential that Congress can't pass even widely agreed upon reforms such as universal background checks, that's something that 80-90% of the American population supports but that Congress won't do because the NRA doesn't want it and the NRA has kind of a chokehold on a lot of people on congress. So it that corruption? To the eye of the beholder maybe, but it's an example of something is wrong with our system and something has brought support but nothing happens because of the lobby because of those who give to campaigns. That's one of those things that's a part of democracy and it can be very frustrating at times and some people would argue that it''s corrupt but I think it's important to know that it's not illegal. It's not breaking the law. If we're talking about corruption in violation of the law I think you know, I think the most common type of thing you see is… and you see it's not that common. Most people in politics, believe it or not, are basically good people trying to do the right thing. Even people I disagree with and have major arguments about policy, most are good people trying to do the right thing. So most people in politics are not corrupt and you know a lot of people have that perception and it's not really the case. What you see the most, more often than anything else is when you have people in public office trying to cash in, and personally profit from their public service and I've mentioned our state attorney general a couple of minutes ago, he's under indictment, that's the allegation that he used his influence to basically go and fraud investors to enrich themself. We had, to show a bipartisan problem, we're talking about Kim Paxton, a very conservative republican. Just last weekend we had a democratic senator convicted on 11counts of fraud because he went and basically did the same thing to fraud investors and sold them a bill of goods to enrich themselves. So those are two examples that don't happen everyday that don't happen every year. These are things that the vast majority, that most wouldn't even think about doing. But when you talk about corruption where people have crossed the line and broken the law is usually what type of thing where they are doing something to personally enrich themselves. So I think that would be the most common illegal activity you would see from public officials.
Why do you think transparency is important?
I think that transparency is just good period. It’s good for the public to know things about their elected officials. They don't need to know every little detail, nut they should know how people make their living. And what how they conduct business.And that's one thing on my website, you've probably seen I've tried to pass laws to ensure better disclosure of what elected officials financial interests are. You know if someone for example owns a bunch of stock in AT&T and they are constantly using their elected office to pass laws that been for telecommunication carrier you could argue it's a conflict of interests because their stock goes up in price. If someone, just like you, people have been made that a lawyer is benefiting from the type of law he's practicing then he's gonna get criticized for that. SO similarly we have the publiccast who knows what people's financial interests are, so we know if they're acting in their own self-interest. And so some if it just common sense. One of the things I've been trying to get passed for four years now is we have to disclose some level of personal financial statements and you know generally where our income comes from, holding we have, whether its stock or a 401 cave or that type of thing. One of the quirks in Texas laws is that these reports are not made available online. So if you wanted a copy of my PFS from the state of Texas you would have to write a letter to the ethics commision and ask them to mail you a copy. You'd probably have to pay a small fee for copying and postage charge, and that's ridiculous in 2017 where we could post these reports online where anybody could look at them. But I've had that bill in the past two sessions and it hasn't passed either time because there's a lot of opposition to even having that small level of transparency, because people wanna be kind of secretive about what they're doing. So I think that those reasons are important and I think what transparency there is promotes the public feeling, having more confidence in their elected leaders and that goes to having healthier and stronger democracy.
What did you do to help improve ethics and transparency by elected officials?
I'll give you a couple of examples. One law I did pass. It came to life a few years ago that Certain elected officials, if they've been in office a long time, could benefit from a loophole that allowed them to retire on paper, but not really retire, so they could begin collecting their retirement pension while they were still in office. Our former governor learned how to double his salary by drawing his taxpayer funded pension and and at the same time still drawing his taxpayer funded salary. Most people don't have the ability to do that in their jobs. So the people were angry about it. And it took two sessions, at first I filed that bill when Perry was still governor and he was none too happy with me. It didn't get passed that first session, but I was able to get it passed the second session. What we called it was double dipping, you know he was double dipping a pension and a salary and so the law was a double dipping ban. If you're an elected official you cannot draw a pension and a salary at the same time. From a pension of your elected service. Now if you were a retired teacher who wanted to run for office, yeah you could collect your teacher pension and serve in office, so that's not what we're trying to get to, that's fine. If you've just been in politics your whole life and you're drawing a pension from your political service and still drawing a salary on your political service, that's not allowed. So we did pass that and I think that was a good bill. And things like I was just talking about like posting our reports online so anyone can go and look at them easily, I think it's just common sense and we ought to do things like that. I'm gonna try again next year when we go back into session. It's clearly something that I've got more convincing to do. I need to convince my colleagues it's the right thing to do.
What do you do to improve your own transparency?
That's a good question. I try to lead by example. Part of it is being in contact with my constituents. I try to stay in regular conflict with my constituents and be available in my district and be out and about and talk to people and hold events. I do a lot of townhall meetings so people can come and ask me whatever they wanna ask me you know? I try to put myself out there to where anyone can contact me or have a conversation with me. And I think that's one of the most important things people in public office can do. My finance reports are available online just so you know there's two different kinds of reports in terms of what my campaign raises and all of that is available online. We take great care to be very detailed and precise when we're reporting things to make sure it's 100% accurate and that we're not trying to hide what we spend money on or hide where we raise money from and I think it's a good thing to do a, to comply with the rules and b, is transparent as possible.
Explain gerrymandering and its effect on the community.
Gerrymandering is arguably another type of corruption,again of the legal variety. GM is drawing congressional districts in a way that determines the outcome of the election to prevent another side from winning, to essentially rig the outcome. In today's world it can be done to try to isolate certain individuals or cut out certain people from running for office. Generally it's done to elect more republicans or if democrats are doing it to elect more democrats. All over the country but particularly in Texas in the democratic party most of the voters who vote democratic are either african american or latino. Republican have drawn these districts over the last couple of decades, and in so doing have effectively marginalized the electoral power of minority communities, both african american and hispanic throughout the state. That has been the subject of a lot of court cases over the last several years where the Texas congressional and state house maps have been found to be unconstitutional, because they've been found to be intentionally discriminatory, and that is illegal. Once a court says it's illegal it's illegal. That is actually before the US Supreme Court, they're gonna hear the Texas case in April. So Gerrymandering has a tremendous impact on everything. It determines who gets elected and who
part of the population. Found to be intentionally discriminatory. An impact on everything, who gets elected or who doesn’t either empowers groups to control election. It determines who gets elected and who doesn't, but more importantly it either empowers groups of voters to control the process and it can disenfranchise or disempower other groups of voters by putting them in districts where they cannot possibly have an influence on the outcome of the election of they hack them into one district where votes are essentially wasted. Your putting a lot more african americans into one district than is necessary to elect an african american member to congress. Where if they were spread between two districts, they could have an impact on two congressional districts. So gerrymandering ultimately affects policy, it determines who gets what I mean are we going to adequately fund public schools and health care and social security or are we gonna have more tax cuts. Those are the kind of policy decisions that are determined by what's in office and who's in office is determined in large parts on how the districts are drawn.
Do you think gerrymandering, specifically in Texas, is a form of corruption or dishonesty in politics? Why or why not?
I think you can have corruption that is not illegal per say. Someone can be acting within the law and still be corrupt. For instance what I just described, that kind of racially motivated redistricting is corrupt. Because you are intentionally marginalizing millions of people for political gain or to hang on to power or to increase your people, even a court finds that to be unconstitutional, no one's gonna go to jail, it's a civil case, but it doesn't make you less of a corrupt politician. Corruption can be things like that, that are still legal, but still wrong, still corrupt. It doesn’t make you less corrupt or still wrong.
How does accepting PAC donations contribute to political corruption?
No I don’t think so. I think, you know, with PACs are… I'll use a teacher's group as an example so State of Texas Teachers have a political committee, and that money is money they have raised from their teacher members to let teachers say they want to help their organization have some influence in some way and help support the candidates who support us. Therefore I'm going to contribute 10 dollars a month to this PAC, and so a lot of times the PAC writes this big check to a candidate, and that is a product of many small dollar donations raised from individual members of that PAC so I used the teacher example but it could be employees of a business maybe a business that contributes to PAC. So it's not inherently corrupt to accept PAC contribution. I think PACs actually play an important role in the process by allowing people to pull their resources and have a voice in the process where they wouldn't always have a voice because it shouldn't just be wealthy folks who write a several thousand dollar check to a candidate. Like with anything it's the elected official with bad judgement or intentions that play a factor in corruption. Just because someone gave me a PAC contribution I'm not gonna act unfairly.
What do you think the average person can do about it?
Vote. Those who are 18 or older need to vote. If you look at the voter turnout and participation
still not 2/3s of eligible voters. If more like 90 percent participated, like in other countries we would see a huge impact. And in Texas we are 51st in voter participation, so every state and Washington DC. And in terms of the percentage of people who vote in elections, the only way we’ll change the system, in Austin and Washington more people vote and participate in the process. Second to that get directly involved whether it's or working in your local community within your school district or within your school, all those are good ways to get involved, the more good people in government, the less corruption we'll have.
How can we inform and educate others about the effects of political corruption?
I think going back to the importance of voting is talking to your age group about these types of issues; when we’re adults it’s our state our city we're not gonna leave it to other people take matters into our own hands and be active participants, rush to vote. One of the most important things thats missing. Younger people don’t vote in the numbers of older folks. When it comes to the youngest group voter participation is not close to anyone where near the older age groups, given on numbers similar effects. The most dangerous thing is people of all ages i don’t vote i don't pay attention to politics it makes a difference in every aspect of your life. Every aspect of our life somehow affected by the government. Develop a culture of voting. You can volunteer on a campaign for a candidate.