EDITORIAL: Voters, officials must break corrupt patterns
NWI Times
The Times Editorial Board
The Times Editorial Board
Mar 7, 2017
The threshold for political embarrassment was redefined Saturday as the Lake County Democratic Party elected its new chairman.
The winner, Region attorney Jim Wieser, deserves a chance to repair the reputation of a party reeling from the embarrassment of political corruption.
But if he's to attempt this important feat, it will be in the shadow of the very process through which he was selected.
It's a tall task and a warning cry to all voters and sitting elected officials of the emergent need to break with past leadership patterns and political allegiances if Northwest Indiana is ever to shed this dubious reputation.
Party precinct committeemen were tied Saturday in their vote for a new chairman — with Wieser and Lake County Commissioner Mike Repay in a voting deadlock.
So the tie-breaking vote, per party rules, went to then-sitting Chairman John Buncich, who also is Lake County sheriff.
Buncich is under federal indictment for allegedly soliciting and accepting bribes in the awarding of towing work sought by the sheriff's office.
In the end, the embarrassment doesn't arise from who Buncich selected but rather that Northwest Indiana politics, once again, was in a dubious position.
Most reasonable people would agree a public official under federal felony indictment isn't the ideal person to be casting a deciding vote for the head of a powerful political party.
Of course, that person shouldn't retain the mantel of the county's chief law enforcement officer, either, and we've argued Buncich already should have resigned his sheriff's post as he mounts a criminal defense.
It's clear Buncich is intent on continuing to drag his law enforcement office and the county's reputation through the mud of his federal criminal case. Only a felony conviction, at this point, would forcibly remove him from office under Indiana law.
Exacerbating this latest embarrassment is a county government and political history wherein more than 60 elected officials or politically connected cronies and contractors have been convicted of crimes against taxpayers since the 1980s.
There are two cures to this cycle that have proven elusive:
Voters must remember incumbents and candidates who forge allegiances with past criminals and use that information accordingly in the voting booths.
Elected and party leaders must stop supporting and elevating colleagues who have been formally charged with breaking the law or have otherwise tarnished the reputation of local government.
Until that happens, our political system will continue defining new thresholds of embarrassment further from the boundaries of ethics, morality and good government.
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