Good governance is more than just keeping the corrupt at bay, and Louise Lucas sadly exemplifies what happens when we tolerate a little bit here, a little bit there…
10/22/2026 — Certainly we should state the obvious up front. State Senator L. Louise Lucas (D-Portsmouth), President pro tempore of the Virginia Senate is and will remain innocent until proven guilty in a court of law, that schadenfreude is typically frowned upon in polite society, and that our reaction to such things says more about us than it does about those in the public spotlight.
For those not aware, Lucas along with several members of her family, was arrested by federal law enforcement officials this morning. The 45-page indictment is damning in and of itself, with transcripts of Sen. Lucas saying “I’m too old not to be greedy” among other damning lines exposed through federal wiretapping, raises serious ethical and legal questions.
I suppose all of us groan a little bit when politicians appear to have been caught with their hands in the cookie jar. The public narrative is that all politicians are crooked. Yet there’s a sort of adolescence in the criticism at times. After all, who keeps voting for these crooked politicians?
The good news is that the vast majority of our public servants really are good, whether they are elected officials or public bureaucrats. Most of them want to serve the public, respond well to criticism and encouragement, and are simply asking for the tools they need to do the job.
The bad news – and isn’t there always bad news? – is that sometimes one bad apple really does spoil the bunch. The axiom is true in classrooms where student discipline goes sideways with just one ill-disciplined brat, true in teams where individuals only work as hard as the least motivated soul, true of weak links in otherwise unbreakable chains.
Sadly, it is also true in legislative bodies.
Now this doesn’t mean that every critic is right. Most people see the world according to their own conditions (pace Thucydides, Book III, 82-83). Most governments are only as good as the people they serve, which puts a whole lot of pressure on us as good citizens to produce not just good government but good societies and even better communities.
At present, Louise Lucas stands out as the example of how not to serve one’s community. In time, she will have her say and the justice system will work out the truth of the matter. Fiat justitia ruat caelum and all that. As a University of Virginia man, one would like to continue to hold to the Echols Values, one of which is to pursue no one to their own ruin.
Yet in real time we are getting a reminder that the public trust is a thing which must be defended rather than cashed out. If civility is a thing to be prized, then corruption of the best is indeed the worst. The manner by which we conduct ourselves speaks to our values and what we prize, and bragging “I’m too old not to be greedy” is a Louise Lucas quote that should make us all pause.
