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Should an Ethics Commission Member Be Affiliated with a Firm That Represents Clients Before It?
Saturday, August 21st, 2010
Robert Wechsler
Last
Saturday's
Atlanta Journal-Constitution ran a long article, "Connections Count
at Law Firm," on the Washington/Atlanta-based law firm McKenna Long & Aldridge.
This firm was known to me primarily as the firm behind the Pay to Pay Law Blog, a
good, although too infrequent blog that looks at government ethics
and campaign finance from the compliance side, that is, from the point
of view of the companies that have to comply with the rules.
McKenna Long is also, according to the article, the tenth-largest lobbying firm in the country, it represents numerous government officials in ethics and election law matters, and it has many former and even current officials on staff, some of whom aren't even lawyers.
The most interesting of its "senior strategic advisors" is David Skaggs, a former congressman from Colorado and, more important, chairman of the board of the Office of Congressional Ethics, the surprisingly aggressive new part of the House ethics process. Other senior strategic advisors include Howard Dean and Zell Miller.
One of the firm's partners is quoted in the article as saying that ethics is a growth industry for the firm. “You see ethics complaints and ethical compliance issues. There’s a lot of gotcha politics going on.” No wonder the practice of ethics and campaign finance law is known as "political law." It's the politics of complaints and the connections that count, at least in getting the work.
But is it right to have so close a connection to the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE)? And is right for the OCE chair to be affiliated with a large lobbying firm, a firm whose interest in protecting lobbyists goes beyond the job of representing clients? And is it right for the OCE chair to be affiliated with a firm that might be representing clients in the very matters the OCE is investigating, and is at the forefront of trying to affect the rules by which the congressional ethics process operates?
Let me get more specific. According to an article in the Washington Examiner this June, McKenna Long represented congressman Nathan Deal in an OCE ethics investigation (see my blog post on this). The congressman resigned in order to prevent the OCE's report from going out, but the OCE went public with the report anyway.
Many ethics codes prohibit a board member or his firm from being involved in matters before the board. This should definitely be true of an ethics body. Of course, the member can recuse himself with respect to a particular investigation, but it certainly would be better for an ethics board member not to be affiliated with a firm that appears before it or whose clients appear before it.
I don't think the chair of a local government ethics commission should be affiliated with a firm that represents clients before ethics commissions, lobbies, and has its own PAC. Even if there is no direct conflict, it makes it look like the deck is stacked in favor of the officials and those who lobby before them or contribute to them. It would be even more problematic were the chair a former council member himself.
For those interested in the practice of political law, Chambers Partners, a British firm, has a list of the top political law firms in the U.S., ranking them by tier (the list calls them "bands"). McKenna Long is listed as in the third band. There are a lot of connections out there.
Robert Wechsler
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics
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McKenna Long is also, according to the article, the tenth-largest lobbying firm in the country, it represents numerous government officials in ethics and election law matters, and it has many former and even current officials on staff, some of whom aren't even lawyers.
The most interesting of its "senior strategic advisors" is David Skaggs, a former congressman from Colorado and, more important, chairman of the board of the Office of Congressional Ethics, the surprisingly aggressive new part of the House ethics process. Other senior strategic advisors include Howard Dean and Zell Miller.
One of the firm's partners is quoted in the article as saying that ethics is a growth industry for the firm. “You see ethics complaints and ethical compliance issues. There’s a lot of gotcha politics going on.” No wonder the practice of ethics and campaign finance law is known as "political law." It's the politics of complaints and the connections that count, at least in getting the work.
But is it right to have so close a connection to the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE)? And is right for the OCE chair to be affiliated with a large lobbying firm, a firm whose interest in protecting lobbyists goes beyond the job of representing clients? And is it right for the OCE chair to be affiliated with a firm that might be representing clients in the very matters the OCE is investigating, and is at the forefront of trying to affect the rules by which the congressional ethics process operates?
Let me get more specific. According to an article in the Washington Examiner this June, McKenna Long represented congressman Nathan Deal in an OCE ethics investigation (see my blog post on this). The congressman resigned in order to prevent the OCE's report from going out, but the OCE went public with the report anyway.
Many ethics codes prohibit a board member or his firm from being involved in matters before the board. This should definitely be true of an ethics body. Of course, the member can recuse himself with respect to a particular investigation, but it certainly would be better for an ethics board member not to be affiliated with a firm that appears before it or whose clients appear before it.
I don't think the chair of a local government ethics commission should be affiliated with a firm that represents clients before ethics commissions, lobbies, and has its own PAC. Even if there is no direct conflict, it makes it look like the deck is stacked in favor of the officials and those who lobby before them or contribute to them. It would be even more problematic were the chair a former council member himself.
For those interested in the practice of political law, Chambers Partners, a British firm, has a list of the top political law firms in the U.S., ranking them by tier (the list calls them "bands"). McKenna Long is listed as in the third band. There are a lot of connections out there.
Robert Wechsler
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics
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