Democracy Has Better Chance Without Bob Ney

The Abramoff case is moving forward, and it appears that Ohio Republican Bob Ney will be one of the first to pay the price for being corrupt.

Some may recall Ney's churlish refusal to take the issue of election security seriously. Despite plentiful evidence of problems with electronic voting machines, Ney adopted what turned out to be the GOP party line, which was that voting machines were fine and the only people complaining were liberals because they were still sore about losing in 2000.

The reason why Ney is important to the issue of election security is that he chaired the committee which indefinitely tabled an election security bill. The bill addressed matters of technology and security and was not a partisan ploy. Nevertheless, the GOP pursued standard operating procedure in making bad policy (or, in this case, avoiding good policy) and shielding themselves with the usual "The liberals are coming! The liberals are coming!" noise machine.

Bob Ney is a corrupt official in a party laden with corrupt officials. The party has vigorously opposed election security measures despite widespread evidence of the potential for fraud and error. It's hard to believe this is coincidence, unless you believe people are corrupt in only one way and not in others. But that's not human nature. Human nature is this: people will do what they can get away with.

People can get away with buying the Presidency, so they did it. People can get away with buying legislation, so they do it. People can get away with buying judges, so they do that, too. If it is possible for people to get away with buying elections, who is foolish enough to say they would not do it?

Special interests have the money and the motive. Bob Ney and the GOP want to give them the opportunity.