Is power corrupting the Martinez administration?

Monahan reports this morning, link, on new scandal in the administration of Governor Susana Martinez.

If there is any corruption in the Martinez administration, it wasn't caused by the power she has handed over to her subordinates and the puppet master.  Power doesn't cause corruption any more than food causes overweight.  Temptation, and the opportunity to give in to it without consequence, corrupts.

Corruption is the child of temptation.
Without temptation there is no corruption;
there would be no reason for there to be.

Consider the corruption that occurs on a casino floor or the first floor of any bank.  There is none.

There is none because there is no temptation. There is no temptation because there is no hope of getting away stealing even a single chip or bill.

The opportunity to abuse power without consequence is tempting.  Ergo, it is corrupting.

How different would the city be, if for example, APD police officers had actually obeyed the existing standard on lapel camera use?

People yield to temptation because they believe they can get away with yielding.  Former APS Chief of Police Steve Tellez yielded allegedly, to the temptation of a free case of ammo.  If there had been a camera on the case and a Chief Operations Officer who would do something about what that camera recorded, Tellez would not have considered, allegedly, waling off with hundreds of dollars worth of public property.

The money takers at the Botanical Park who were helping themselves to cash all day long, and who were finally caught when cameras were installed surreptitiously, would not have taken the money at all, if on the first day their manager had told them; your job is to handle cash.  There is a camera over your head recording your every move.  Have a nice day.

There is a reason people pray for deliverance from temptation.

There would be no public corruption in government,
if it were not so damned easy to get away with it.

That it is so easy to get away with it is the fault of governors
and mayors and school boards.

That it is so easy for politicians to get away with it,
is of course the fault of the people,
who make it so damned easy for them to get away with it.

Actual, honest accountability to meaningful standards of conduct and competence within public service ends temptation and corruption in one fell swoop.

Until the day they come up with;

1.  clear and unequivocal standards of conduct and competence, and

2.  a place or process where the least powerful can file complaints against the most powerful, and where those complaints will see timely due process.

everything else they; the Governor's Office, the Mayor's Office, the Chief's Office, and APS come up with, is bullshit.  Bullshit concocted to avoid open and honest public discussion of their standards of conduct and competence and of their honest accountability to them.