The Selection of Ethics Commission Members by Community Organizations

Nothing is more important to an ethics program than ensuring that an ethics commission is seen as independent, and not a pawn of politicians. People will not trust the advisory opinions and enforcement decisions of an ethics commission consisting of people with even presumed ties to politicians. Since trust is the principal goal of an ethics program, this is unacceptable.

The City Ethics Model Code recommends, as an alternative to the nomination of ethics commission members by local government executives or legislative bodies, having nonpartisan community organizations nominate members instead. I give as an example Atlanta, which has each of the following organizations select one member:

League of Women Voters
Chamber of Commerce
Planning Advisory Board
The Six Major Universities
City Bar Association
Gate City Bar Association
Business League

Milwaukee does it the same way. Seven organizations select one member each:

Public Policy Forum
Milwaukee Branch – N.A.A.C.P.
Milwaukee Labor Council
Interfaith Conference of Greater Milwaukee
Metro. Milwaukee Association of Commerce
Milwaukee Bar Association
League of Women Voters of Milwaukee County

Members of the Miami-Dade County Ethics Commission are selected as follows:

The Chief Judge of the Eleventh Judicial Circuit appoints two members.
The Director of Florida International University’s Center for Labor Research and Studies appoints a member.
The Miami-Dade League of Cities appoints a member.
The Dean of the University of Miami School of Law and the Dean of St. Thomas University School of Law share in the appointment of one member

Members of the Jackson County (MO) ethics commission are selected by a commission consisting of

The Executive Director of the Mid-America Regional Council
The Dean of the U. of Missouri-K.C.'s School of Business and Public Administration
The President of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference of Greater Kansas City

Members of the Palm Beach County Ethics Commission will be selected individually by:

Palm Beach County Association of Chiefs of Police
minority attorney associations
president of Florida Atlantic University
county chapter of the Florida Institute of CPAs
county League of Cities (selecting a former elected official)

The county's inspector general will be selected by the EC plus representatives of the State Attorney and Public Defender offices.

Six of the seven members of the New Orleans Ethics Review Board are chosen by the mayor (with council approval) from nominees submitted by the heads of five local private universities (the seventh is the mayor's to select).

In 2011, Cuyahoga County, OH (which includes Cleveland) had a citizen Code of Ethics Workgroup draft a recommended ethics code. The draft code provided for selection of ethics board members by community organizations, but the final code dispensed with the ethics board altogether. Here is the draft's unusual approach:

Leaders of established countywide, nonpartisan, nonprofit entities interested in good government and institutional integrity shall be invited to submit to the County Executive the names of two nominees for each expected Board vacancy. At the discretion of the County Council, suggested nominating authorities may include the NAACP, the Norman Minor Bar Assn., an inter-faith clergy group, the Greater Cleveland Partnership, the Young Presidents’ Organization, the Cleveland Metropolitan Bar Association, the City Club, a local university ethics faculty, the Center for Community Solutions, the North Shore Federation of Labor, a County employee association or the League of Women Voters. The County Executive shall appoint Ethics Board members from the lists provided, which appointments shall be confirmed by a two-thirds majority vote of the County Council.

Houston's ethics commission members are partially selected by community organizations, as follows:

Position 1. Houston Bar Association, from the legal community.
Position 2. Central Labor Council of the AFL-CIO, from the labor community.
Positon 3. Harris County Medical Society, from the medical community.
Positions 4 through 7. Council, from the city community-at-large.

Wyandotte County/Kansas City, KS ethics commission members are selected by what is known as the ad hoc ethics commission appointment panel, consisting of the administrative judge of the county district court, the district attorney of the county, and the legislative auditor of the county. Oddly, membership on the panel is voluntary and a quorum of two is required, so that it would be possible for there not to be sufficient membership on the panel to allow for the selection of ethics commission members.

Louisiana's ethics commission is selected from a list of candidates prepared by presidents of the state's private colleges.

A more informal alternative is used in Corpus Christi. Community organizations are asked to recommend people for the ethics commission, but anyone can send his or her name in. This alternative still allows politicians to choose ethics commission members, but it is better than nothing.

Robert Wechsler
Director of Research, City Ethics
rwechsler@cityethics.org
203-230-2548