Driving into work on Thursday I was listening to Governor Chris Christie's press conference about the unfolding scandal in New Jersey. If you haven't heard, apparently some senior staffers in the Christie office orchestrated lane closures on the George Washington Bridge which resulted in residents of the town of Fort Lee being tied up in traffic for hours. The purpose of the orchestrated event was to punish the town's mayor for not endorsing Christie's gubernatorial re-election bid.
If you had to read that a few times to let it sink in, I don't blame you. It seems utterly preposterous that anyone would think that such a scheme would be a good idea and even more ludicrous considering that Christie's re-election hopes were not contingent on this particular endorsement. He won the election with over 60 per cent of the votes.
Besides being another political scandal, this incident raises questions about the role of senior staff as gatekeepers and handlers of the elected representatives. You have probably seen the satire prevalent in television shows about the bumbling politician propped up by a very smart bureaucrat. The best example of a show in this category is the British series, Yes Minister which tells of the story of a Cabinet minister's attempt to make policy and legislative changes only to be thwarted by senior civil servants.
Fiction aside, the number one and number two positions in any political office are positions of power. The Chief of Staff and the Deputy Chief of staff are critical players in the construction of a political leader. Senior bureaucrats are also critical players in constructing the policies that a Minister will champion. Yet ultimately the politician has the final responsibility. There have been numerous examples in recent political history of senior aides overstepping their bounds or making inappropriate decisions to shield the political executive from embarrassment or scandal. For example, Nigel Wright's role in the Senate scandal is still under investigation and, of course, Adriaan Dix was fired for writing a memo to protect Glen Clark.
Politicians are surrounded by people whose primary task is to get them elected and then re-elected and these individuals often craft and structure the political message. These advisors and staffers come and go with election cycles and their jobs are often contingent on the fortunes of the candidate.
There are two groups of individuals that work with and for a politician: their own staff of advisors and the civil service. The bureaucracy remains consistent despite changes in government. These individuals are responsible for crafting policies and legislation that reflect the government's agenda and promises that were made during campaigns. Civil servants work for whichever party holds power and they must be non-partisan. They must work to execute the government's plans despite the fact that they may hold personal ideological objections to the policy. This is a textbook description of a civil servant. But the textbooks also remind us that life long civil servants have more experience in the area of policy than does the Minister. Their experience in policy formulation and analysis is supposed to inform decisions that are made by the Minister. In this capacity, they can have considerable power to shape policy and to frame options as they see fit.
The advisors and personal staffers work in a relationship of trust that is necessary in the context of the often dirty game of politics. Political staff have often worked tirelessly on the campaign trail with the hope and the expectations of being part of the government staff after an election win. These people tend to believe in their candidate and they can potentially get caught up in the celebrity culture of politics. In this context, individuals can choose to make decisions that are foolish, unethical and potentially criminal in the name of loyalty.
So what is the responsibility of the politician? They must both lead the bureaucracy to achieve the goals of government and they must set a tone that establishes the ethical standard for the behaviour of their staff. One could certainly believe that Christie did not know that his staff would do something so outrageous but he should have ensured that there was an understanding that this type of tactic would not have been tolerated under any circumstances.
