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A Family of Elected Officials
Thursday, November 18th, 2010
Robert Wechsler
What do you do when you are not the only member of your immediate
family who is an elected official? This question arose in Frederick
County, MD, the home of Camp David.
According to an article in the Frederick News Post this week, Ron Young was elected earlier this year as state senator for the county, his son Blaine will be president of the Board of County Commissioners, his son Brad has been elected to the county Board of Education, and his wife, Karen Lewis Young, is a member of the Frederick (city) Board of Aldermen.
The first thing you do is admit that there might be conflicts that will prevent your participation, and promise to seek independent ethics counsel. Then you add that these occasions will be few. It's not as if a family get-together could be seen as an illegal meeting, since none of them sit on the same board. Nor is anyone representing anyone else or, presumably, appearing before one another's bodies.
The Board of Aldermen and Board of Ed will be seeking funds from the county and the state, but the state senator will want those funds for the county every bit as much as them. The only concrete appearance of favoritism could be by the state and county representatives for the city of Frederick, where wife and mother (or step-mother? the article doesn't say) sits on the board of aldermen. But especially if county voters knew this, it's not much of a problem. If they didn't know that this would be the case, it could be a problem.
The other area that creates an appearance issue is salaries and other funding. It appears from the article that the state senate controls how much county commissioners are paid. It also appears that the county board votes on how much is allotted to the board of education, but this isn't about one brother helping the other brother; it's about how much should be spent on education. If the brothers share an interest in funding (or starving) education, that's a political issue, not a personal one.
Unfortunately, it doesn't appear that the family has given this great thought. The father is quoted as saying, "I can't foresee anything. If something came up that I was in doubt about, I would ask a question."
As for the issue of the father voting for a raise for his son, he said that it wouldn't matter that it's his son when it came to making a decision. "I think we'll work together like anybody in office would work together." Pure bull, and irrelevant.
Oddly, the mother said that it is "highly unlikely" that the four of them would get together, and that they never talk politics.
An editorial in yesterday's News Post doesn't help things. The editors say that "the notion that any of the Youngs would be deliberately making decisions to directly benefit one or more of the other Youngs doesn't make a lot of sense to us. For one thing, each represents only one vote among many. Second, if a conflict of interest is alleged, the individual involved would be called upon to recuse himself or herself from voting on it."
Focusing on votes is naive or disingenuous. Elected officials don't just have one vote, they have one vote to trade, and they have a mouth to persuade others to vote. One son will be president of the county commission. That clearly gives him more power than one vote, and he's the one that can most favor the city of Frederick over the rest of the county.
Also, the editors assume that someone will allege a conflict before a matter arises. It's just as likely that the family member will participate and possibly vote before the issue is raised, if it is raised at all. And even if it is raised in a timely way, it can be used as a political weapon to embarrass the family and distract officials from their work.
The editors also mention that the father and one of the sons are "politically estranged." But conflicts are not about politics. This too is irrelevant.
The editors do raise one interesting issue: "the whole lot of them will be under a big magnifying glass, with every motion they make or vote they cast being scrutinized by the public and their political 'enemies.' When corruption takes place in the public sector, some of the key players are out of the public spotlight. In the case of the Youngs, they're all in it."
This is a good point about corruption, and is a problem when it comes to government ethics. The power is often behind the throne, in the hands of someone who does not hold public office, often the head of a party committee. But it is not true that everything elected officials do is in the spotlight. Despite open meeting laws, a lot still goes on behind the scenes.
The editors are also right about the bottom line: four family members at different levels of government do not pose a great threat to government ethics, at least in the abstract. But they will not be interacting in the abstract.
Robert Wechsler
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics
---
According to an article in the Frederick News Post this week, Ron Young was elected earlier this year as state senator for the county, his son Blaine will be president of the Board of County Commissioners, his son Brad has been elected to the county Board of Education, and his wife, Karen Lewis Young, is a member of the Frederick (city) Board of Aldermen.
The first thing you do is admit that there might be conflicts that will prevent your participation, and promise to seek independent ethics counsel. Then you add that these occasions will be few. It's not as if a family get-together could be seen as an illegal meeting, since none of them sit on the same board. Nor is anyone representing anyone else or, presumably, appearing before one another's bodies.
The Board of Aldermen and Board of Ed will be seeking funds from the county and the state, but the state senator will want those funds for the county every bit as much as them. The only concrete appearance of favoritism could be by the state and county representatives for the city of Frederick, where wife and mother (or step-mother? the article doesn't say) sits on the board of aldermen. But especially if county voters knew this, it's not much of a problem. If they didn't know that this would be the case, it could be a problem.
The other area that creates an appearance issue is salaries and other funding. It appears from the article that the state senate controls how much county commissioners are paid. It also appears that the county board votes on how much is allotted to the board of education, but this isn't about one brother helping the other brother; it's about how much should be spent on education. If the brothers share an interest in funding (or starving) education, that's a political issue, not a personal one.
Unfortunately, it doesn't appear that the family has given this great thought. The father is quoted as saying, "I can't foresee anything. If something came up that I was in doubt about, I would ask a question."
As for the issue of the father voting for a raise for his son, he said that it wouldn't matter that it's his son when it came to making a decision. "I think we'll work together like anybody in office would work together." Pure bull, and irrelevant.
Oddly, the mother said that it is "highly unlikely" that the four of them would get together, and that they never talk politics.
An editorial in yesterday's News Post doesn't help things. The editors say that "the notion that any of the Youngs would be deliberately making decisions to directly benefit one or more of the other Youngs doesn't make a lot of sense to us. For one thing, each represents only one vote among many. Second, if a conflict of interest is alleged, the individual involved would be called upon to recuse himself or herself from voting on it."
Focusing on votes is naive or disingenuous. Elected officials don't just have one vote, they have one vote to trade, and they have a mouth to persuade others to vote. One son will be president of the county commission. That clearly gives him more power than one vote, and he's the one that can most favor the city of Frederick over the rest of the county.
Also, the editors assume that someone will allege a conflict before a matter arises. It's just as likely that the family member will participate and possibly vote before the issue is raised, if it is raised at all. And even if it is raised in a timely way, it can be used as a political weapon to embarrass the family and distract officials from their work.
The editors also mention that the father and one of the sons are "politically estranged." But conflicts are not about politics. This too is irrelevant.
The editors do raise one interesting issue: "the whole lot of them will be under a big magnifying glass, with every motion they make or vote they cast being scrutinized by the public and their political 'enemies.' When corruption takes place in the public sector, some of the key players are out of the public spotlight. In the case of the Youngs, they're all in it."
This is a good point about corruption, and is a problem when it comes to government ethics. The power is often behind the throne, in the hands of someone who does not hold public office, often the head of a party committee. But it is not true that everything elected officials do is in the spotlight. Despite open meeting laws, a lot still goes on behind the scenes.
The editors are also right about the bottom line: four family members at different levels of government do not pose a great threat to government ethics, at least in the abstract. But they will not be interacting in the abstract.
Robert Wechsler
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics
---
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