From Watergate to Enron — Has Anything Really Changed?

From Watergate to Enron — Has Anything Really Changed?

By Tom Sevigny, Canton

Tom Sevigny is co-chair of the Green Party of CT.

The only thing I remember about Watergate was that my after-school television programming, which consisted of cartoons and Sesame Street, was preempted by a bunch of old men in a marble building who talked incessantly about some guy named Nixon. My outrage over such an abominable injustice—did I not have a right to watch Deputy Dog and Big Bird?—probably led to my progressive political leanings and my keen interest in history later in life. I would find out how such an injustice could occur and who was responsible. What I learned was that there exists a much greater injustice in American politics: the corrupt relationship between politicians and the corporate world.

At the time, politicians and pundits claimed that the resignation of Nixon and the arrest of his henchmen, along with the enactment of new campaign finance reforms, proved that the system was working. However, the elimination of Richard Nixon left intact all the mechanisms and all the false values that permitted the Watergate scandal to occur in the first place. The televised Senate Committee hearings that interrupted my after-school programming stopped suddenly before the subject of corporate connections were reached. While the actual bungled burglary was given full treatment by the press and politicians, the underlying corporate influence on the White House and the subversion this influence had on our democracy was ignored or simply brushed under the rug.

Over the past thirty years—despite all the reforms—the mechanisms and false values that led to Watergate have continued the "Grand Bazaar" of influence buying and peddling that subverts the needs of ordinary citizens. This "Grand Bazaar" determines who pays taxes and who escapes them; who breathes bad air; and who will suffer as the world economy goes global. It has also led to more scandals such as the Savings and Loan taxpayer bailout of the '80s, and our newest political scandal surrounding the downfall of Enron.

Enron, like all corporations, viewed campaign contributions as an investment strategy—and more often than not, it paid off for them. The corrupt interplay between Enron's campaign contributions and government policy-making exemplifies how corporate ownership of the political system subverts the needs of the people.

Although a horrible consequence, Enron employees, left without pension funds and jobs, are not the only citizens paying for the corrupting influence of Enron's money on our political system. Enron was a major player in the utility deregulation debacle in California that led to increased utility bills and power blackouts. They also had a major influence on the Bush Administration's energy policy, a policy that will keep the United States reliant on fossil fuels and nuclear energy for years to come. The many tentacles of the Enron scandal have even reached into Connecticut. The Connecticut Resources Recovery Authority's president lost $220 million of public money in a deal with Enron—and taxpayers in at least 65 towns, in the form of higher fees for garbage collection, will have to pay for it.

There is really only one question that we should all be asking ourselves in the wake of the Enron scandal: What can we the people, the true owners of the political system, do about the corrupting influence of corporations' ownership of the political system? This question is now on the margins of the debate, where politicians and pundits hope to keep it. Like during the aftermath of Watergate, will there only be a few reforms (like the Shays-Meehan campaign finance bill) that will ultimately keep intact the "Grand Bazaar," or will fundamental change finally take place? I sure hope it is the latter, because I really want to go back to watching my cartoons.