A warning for new politicians

Our October elections promise to be profound because they feature so many new faces to politics, the intended and welcome result of term limits.

Despite this new energy and season of change, corruption and scandal dominated Louisiana’s political news this summer.

U.S. Rep. William Jefferson, the New Orleans Democrat, must explain $90,000 in cash the FBI found in his freezer, not to mention why several people close to him have pleaded guilty to bribing him in order to receive favorable treatment on business deals with Nigeria.

Rather than finding himself in a powerful and historic position as a New Orleans rebuilding ambassador to the nation, Jefferson has been reduced to a pathetic, virtually silent, and largely ineffective figure stripped of power in the House while he awaits trial.

Meanwhile, U.S. Sen. David Vitter, a Republican who’s championed family values, featuring his wife and kids in numerous television ads, went into virtual hiding after Hustler Publisher Larry Flynt discovered Vitter’s phone number in a list of phone numbers of a Washington, D.C., escort service known for providing prostitutes to its clients. Then a New Orleans madam came forward ostensibly to defend Vitter, insisting he’s a nice guy who’s misunderstood. When he visited hookers at her brothel, she said, all he really wanted to do was talk. Vitter denied seeing a hooker in New Orleans, but the damage was already done.

Both of these sagas are humiliating for Louisiana, which still, even now, cannot seem to shake our reputation for shady dealing and immoral living.

But voters barely will feel the sting of these scandals, simply piling as they do atop all the others that have helped cement our country’s notion of how we do things here. For the families of these men once held in high esteem—Jefferson graduated from Harvard Law School, and Vitter was known as a clean-cut conservative who represented a new day in politics—the pain of these scandals is exquisite, and can be much more devastating.

This fall, voters should make tougher ethics rules for the elected top priority.

And this new generation jumping into the fray in October should heed a crucial lesson from this summer of political embarrassment: You will be held accountable, very publicly, for what you do—especially what goes on behind closed doors. And if you can’t find the strength within to live up to that—and even if you can’t do that for voters—then at least do it for your families. Your failure means they, whom you love the most, will suffer the worst.