Considering Political Corruption and, Perhaps, a New City Motto

By CLYDE HABERMAN

My colleague Sam Roberts wrote on Monday about a Latin motto woven into the Bronx borough flag. It's from Virgil. “Ne cede malis,” it goes. “Do not yield to evil.”

The Day

Clyde Haberman offers his take on the news.

Considering the number of Bronx politicians sent to prison for criminal possession of sticky fingers, the irony of those words is self-evident. Perhaps a new motto is in order, not just for the Bronx but for the entire city. Other boroughs have hardly been slackers when it comes to producing officials who look more natural in orange jumpsuits than in pinstripes.

One slogan that seems appropriate has the advantage of being both familiar and to the point: “Ostende mihi pecuniam.” You probably know it better in its English form:

“Show me the money.”

What better timing for this idea than the day after yet another office holder, State Senator Shirley L. Huntley of Queens, ended up with hands cuffed behind her back, charged with conspiring to siphon taxpayer dollars from their intended purpose and divert them to the pockets of allies and relatives.

The roster of the indicted and the convicted among New York's political class is appallingly long, and keeps growing. Nearly two dozen officials, most of them Democrats, have been brought up on corruption charges in the last few years. The names of many who fell from grace can be found in a “Day” column that ran not long ago. They run the gamut from A to Z - from A for Alan G. Hevesi, the former state comptroller, to Z for Miguel Martinez, a former city councilman. (Where is it written that the name has to begin with Z?)

Separate from the criminal charges brought against Ms. Huntley on Monday, Assemblywoman Naomi Rivera of the Bronx is reportedly in the sights of ethics officials because of claims that she put her lovers on the public payroll and used a nonprofit organization that she controlled as her personal ATM.

As if old-fashioned greed weren't enough, we have lust to consider as well.

The avatar of this deadly sin is Assemblyman Vito J. Lopez, the Democratic political boss in Brooklyn. On Friday, the Assembly leadership stripped Mr. Lopez of his privileges, based on findings that he had groped, kissed and verbally harassed female staff members. It turns out, though, that the same leadership â€" namely Speaker Sheldon Silver - had earlier doled out in secret more than $100,000 of the public's money to quietly settle allegations of sexual harassment against the 71-year-old assemblyman.

Ah, Albany.

Though Mr. Lopez denies any wrongdoing, many leading Democrats, including the governor, say it's time for him to go.

All of this is enough to make a grown man blush. Not everyone's sensibi lities, however, are quite so delicate. District Council 37, the city's largest union of public employees, is made of sterner stuff.

Last week the council announced its endorsements for legislative primaries that will be held on Sept. 13. Among the candidates it considers stellar are Ms. Huntley and Ms. Rivera. Oh, and also Assemblyman William F. Boyland Jr. of Brooklyn. Besides possessing the worst attendance record in Albany and displaying no interest in introducing bills, Mr. Boyland has twice been indicted on federal charges of bribe-receiving.

He beat one set of charges last November. That was a perplexing turn of events. One jury had previously pronounced the head of a health care organization guilty of bribing the assemblyman. But now a different bunch of jurors couldn't agree that Mr. Boyland had in fact received those payoffs. Call it the immaculate reception. Federal prosecutors aren't through with Mr. Boyland, though. They have brought new corruption charges against him.

So, why are officials of such questionable character deemed worthy of a giant union's approval?

District Council 37 confined itself to passing along a prepared statement from its executive director, Lillian Roberts, to the effect that its endorsement process was “transparent.”

“Candidates are not rated on any single issue but on the entire record of issues related to labor,” Ms. Roberts said.

All in all, it looks as if we're a long way from seeing the end of “Ostende mihi pecuniam” as a guide to New York politics. Mr. Lopez's situation is another matter. If the groping charges are true, his seems more a case of “Da mihi corpus tuum.”

“Give me your body.”