An Anti-Ethics Reform Rant Worth Reading

People frequently belittle government ethics reforms as meaningless window dressing intended to make politicians look like they're being ethical, something I have said myself in certain contexts. Yet it is worth reading an extreme view of this, which oddly comes from a journalist writing a blog that takes "an evangelical Christian viewpoint."

The journalist is George Belkin, and he writes a blog for nj.com, the principal online newspaper site in New Jersey. His blog on ethics reforms that the state's gubernatorial candidates are pushing concludes, "ethics laws so popular among candidates target only a very narrow band of bad behavior. Behaviors which, when compared to larger issues of moral behavior, have far less negative impact, both in terms of dollars and moral example."

The immoral behavior he explicitly compares ethics conduct to is divorce, which he finds much more damaging. He also believes that ethics laws do nothing to deter unethical conduct, using as evidence the fact that several NJ mayors were found to have taken bribes anyway.

Belkin's blog post is worth reading to see so many anti-ethics arguments squeezed together in one place, as well as to experience the anger that drives them.

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