It's pop quiz time. Read the following ethics code provision and
hypothetical, and answer the question that follows them.
No public servant shall solicit or
accept, directly or indirectly, any thing of economic value as a gift
or gratuity from any person or from any officer, director, agent, or
employee of such person, if such public servant knows or reasonably
should know that such person has or is seeking to obtain contractual or
other business or financial relationships with the public servant's
agency
A regular library patron walks into a library with his two children,
and the three of them hand out homemade chocolate chip cookies to each
of the children's libarians. The librarians joyfully eat the cookies
with the children. The librarians have certainly violated their diets,
but have they violated the above ethics provision?
Okay, this isn't quite a hypothetical. It's a provision in the
Louisiana code, and the state Board of Ethics, in an advisory opinion,
decided that accepting the cookies would be a violation, according to
an Associated
Press article , and that the librarians should have refused the
cookies.
Technically, the board was right, because the family does do business
with the library. Only that's not what is actually meant by business.
Business is what contractors and other businesspeople do. Tips, which
is what these cookies are, are another thing entirely. They too may be
prohibited, but such a prohibition should be clear. And perhaps this is
the sort of decision that should be made locally rather than at the
state level, although making a decision on tips locally may be required by
the state.
But the important issue here is that ethics codes should be read not
technically, but spiritually, that is, the spirit is more important
than the words. And the effect of the decisions should also be taken
into account. People are up in arms over this decision, not only at the
parish library, but all over. Take one political commentator, who
contrasts the cookie episode with a mayor (named Price) who uses his
city credit card for personal purposes and gets away with it.
His op-ed colum n
is entitled "Louisiana Politics: The Price of Cookies and Absurd
Ethics."
Yes, indeed, there is a price to being overly strict or treating ethics
codes like any other law. Holiday time is the perfect time to recognize
the importance of the difference between ethics and law, and to think
about how the two can best be reconciled, as they must be in a world of
lawyers, for whom ethical rules are more limit than guideline. Lines
have to be drawn, but they must be drawn with sensitivity to what is
right and appropriate to the spirit of the law and the spirit of ethics.
Get into the holiday spirit, Louisiana Board of Ethics, and reconsider
your decision.
Robert Wechsler
Director of Research, City Ethics
203-230-2548
