The battle for democracy reaches the home front
Like goblins who won’t give up after Halloween ends, one of Richard Nixon’s most infamous lines seems to be haunting our country these days.
In a 1977 interview with David Frost, the former president blurted out: “When the president does it, it means it is not illegal.”
These days, people seem to think our current president has a similar attitude. The problem is, it’s not just Donald Trump. It’s all manner of elected and appointed officials.
The latest example is a whole slew of officials in the City of Peabody — and perhaps in other county communities — who for nearly a decade have failed to let the public see the city’s year-end financial data as required by law.
It’s not just that Peabody has had lots of turnover in various public positions, and it’s not that Peabody hasn’t been told it failed to do what state law requires. This has been going on since at least 2016 or 2017, through multiple different administrations. And accountants who annually certify the city’s finances confirm that they have warned the city every year since then that it was breaking the law.
Yet, to date, absolutely nothing has been done about it. That’s not just an indictment of several generations of Peabody officials. It’s also an indictment of several generations of county prosecutors, state oversight officials, legislators who fail to make sure their laws are enforced, we journalists who are supposed to serve as public watchdogs, and even citizens who have a responsibility in our democracy to make sure governments are following the law.
The argument we’re sure to hear is that nobody pays any attention to annual financial reconciliations, so why should they be published? Truth is, only a handful of people will check the numbers. But that handful does exist. There are good citizens in every community who regularly pore over every shred of information governments are required to publish and spend hours studying whether anything is amiss. It’s one of the biggest checks and balances that exists in our democracy.
When anyone in government insists that the people who pay the bills don’t have a right to look at the books and make sure the money they pay is being properly used, we’re one giant step closer to the type of autocratic, fascist government that opponents of President Trump think he’s leading us toward. But it isn’t just in the White House where disdain for following the law originates. It’s in local city halls like Peabody’s.
Years ago, governments were required to disclose to the public every check they wrote. Not everyone looked at them, but a surprising number did, and a surprising amount of accountability was created because of this openness.
Ask yourself: Did you have more confidence in government back then? Was government more effective and responsive to the people? Or has all this secrecy and refusal to follow the law created a system in which government spends more and more, seems less and less under control, and actively discourages citizens from becoming involved by speaking out or running for office?
The gradual erosion of openness in government represented by continual efforts not to release to the public ever-increasing amounts of government information and to make it harder and harder to understand what is released is part of the reason our democracy is in the precarious position it finds itself today.
All of us hate to single out Peabody, but what it has done by knowingly flouting the law for nearly a decade cannot be allowed to stand. If we ever hope to reclaim public control over government, Peabody must be made an example.
Next Tuesday, we’ll be celebrating the courage of those who fought for democracy on battlefields far from home. If we are too cowardly, too apathetic, or too busy to be bothered to fight for democracy at home, their sacrifices will have been in vain.
— ERIC MEYER