Dan Walters: Schwarzenegger, Cunningham: Conduct crosses ethical line

By Dan Walters -- Bee Columnist
Published 2:15 am PDT Sunday, July 17, 2005
Outright bribery of a public official - a quid pro quo swap of money for some official action - is obviously illegal, as dozens of one-time officeholders sitting in prison cells could attest.
But somewhere short of bribery, there's an amorphous wall that separates ethically appropriate political conduct from the inappropriate, and two of the state's most prominent Republicans - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and San Diego County Congressman Randy Cunningham - ran into it last week.

Cunningham, facing a federal investigation of his private financial dealings with the president of a defense contracting firm, announced Thursday that he will not seek re-election next year, citing the "serious allegations against him" but insisting that he's innocent of any illicit efforts on behalf of the contractor. A consortium headed by MZM Inc. President Mitchell Wade bought Cunningham's home for $1.65 million, more than twice what it later brought on resale, and Cunningham, a famed Vietnam War fighter pilot, has been living rent-free in Washington on a yacht owned by Wade.

Schwarzenegger, facing an increasing barrage of criticism about his multimillion-dollar editorial and consulting contract with a string of bodybuilding magazines, abandoned it Friday, saying: "I don't want there to be any question or doubt that the people have my full devotion."

Although his five-year promotional and editorial contract with the magazine publisher, American Media Inc., had been previously reported, the extent of Schwarzenegger's compensation, at least $5 million against a percentage of the ad revenue, wasn't disclosed until AMI made a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The deal was made just before Schwarzenegger assumed the governorship in 2003, and what made it politically dicey is that the magazines are filled with ads for dietary supplements and he vetoed legislation aimed at curbing their use by high school athletes.

The governor's perpetual critics immediately alleged that because his magazine income hinges on ad revenues, much of which are generated by pitches for dietary supplements, it was an unethical conflict of interest for him to decide the fate of the legislation. A Schwarzenegger spokesman initially defended the contract and the disclosures, but as media interest and criticism intensified, Schwarzenegger recognized - like Cunningham - that he was in a no-win situation.

Almost certainly, no state laws governing conflict of interest were broken, because Schwarzenegger's connection to the products' makers was indirect, and his situation was probably no more onerous than those of dozens of legislators who have financial or professional ties to groups whose causes they push. They, like Schwarzenegger, are not in legal conflict because they don't specifically benefit from their actions. Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez, for example, received income from a Los Angeles labor group for months, then dropped the moonlighting job for reasons much like those Schwarzenegger cited.

Nevertheless, the flap was another example of the governor's somewhat tone-deaf approach to politics. He has assumed from the onset of his governorship that because he was a famous bodybuilder and movie star entering politics as a civic gesture, the ordinary - if unwritten - rules of political conduct didn't apply. That attitude has manifested itself in what can only be described as sloppiness, whether it be in his often contradictory public pronouncements, his inartful drafting of ballot measures that he says are vital policy reforms or his raising huge amounts of campaign money while decrying the influence in the Capitol of special interests.

Somehow, Schwarzenegger convinced himself that he was immune to the political effects of that sloppiness - that the purity of his motives would be obvious and compelling - but each instance provided his enemies, who never wanted him to succeed as governor, with more ammunition to undercut his standing with voters, a standing that now is only slightly more than half of his sky-high approval nine months ago.

Perhaps Schwarzenegger finally understands that he's fighting for his political life, and arrogant disregard for the niceties could be his undoing.