"In my view, the suggestion [by Judge Sotomayor] that [campaign] contributions are tantamount to bribery should offend anyone who’s ever contributed to a political campaign — including the millions of Americans who donated money in small and large amounts to the Presidential campaign of the man who nominated Judge Sotomayor to the Supreme Court."

Sen. Mitch McConnell (Rep, KY) in a press release yesterday. Sotomayor, like others who support campaign finance reform, do not equate small campaign contributions with bribery. In fact, a principal goal of campaign finance reform, especially public financing, is to make small campaign contributions more valuable to candidates. Small contributors give because they believe in a candidate. Many large contributors give because they want something from a candidate. To confuse the two, as Sen. McConnell did yesterday, is a devious, desperate attack on campaign finance reform and Judge Sotomayor, and an irresponsible use of the free speech that Sen. McConnell says he cherishes. [Disclosure: Besides my work with City Ethics, I administer a public campaign financing program in New Haven, CT.]

The controversy surrounding the New York State pension fund returned to the front page of the New York Times today. The players are former state comptroller Alan Hevesi, his political adviser Hank Morris, and pension fund investment officer David Loglisci.

The occasion is the indictment by the state attorney general of Morris and Loglisci, along with charges brought by the SEC. The charges involve kickbacks from Morris's acting as an intermediary between investment firms and his close friend Alan Hevesi, who is the pension fund's sole trustee. But I'm more interested in the ethics status of Hank Morris, a man without any formal position in government who was actually a major government mover and shaker. What can an ethics program do about someone like him?

The NYC Campaign Finance Board has put together an excellent Doing Business Database, consisting of a searchable list of individuals (principal owners, principal officers, and senior managers of entities) “doing business” with a wide assortment of city agencies and quasi-governmental entities, including through contracts, bids or proposals for contracts, concessions, franchises, grants, economic development agreements, and pension fund investment agreements, as well as those engaged in real property transactions (the sale, purchase, lease or exchange of real estate to or from the city) and seeking land use actions (applicants subject to the city’s Uniform Land Use Review Procedure (which governs applications for changes in zoning designation, special permits, and other actions) as well as zoning text amendments). The list also includes registered lobbyists, and is searchable by individual or entity.

The list is intended to tie in to NYC's new pay-to-play provisions, which mandate low limits on campaign contributions from people who are doing business with the city. But such a list could also be used to help officials decide whether to accept gifts from an individual as well as whether to recuse themselves, although for these purposes it would be useful to add information about which agencies or departments an individual does business with. Such a list also helps oversight groups and the news media determine who does business with a city or county.

Campaign contributions are not generally considered to be bribes, but the perception of large campaign contributions from local government contractors is often that they are payments for contracts past or future, what is known in the government ethics business as "pay-to-play."

For this reason, state and local governments have taken a variety of approaches toward dealing with this perception. The most common response is disclosure, for example, requiring local government contractors to disclose their status when they give a contribution above a certain amount. The most extreme response is to prevent contractors from making contributions at all, as is more often done with lobbyists.

New York City has taken a new approach, in conjunction with its public financing program, which, as I said in an earlier blog entry, has caught the attention of James Bopp, the nation's leading bringer of suits against public campaign financing programs, according to an article in the New York Sun.

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You know you're in trouble when a grand jury foreman says about you, "They need an independent organization to be an oversight ..., not just the grand jury doing it once every few years."

Of course, the "they" here are local government agencies:  five community college districts in San Diego County, whose boards of trustees are elected.

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One goal of campaign finance reform is to end the appearance and reality of corruption that comes with large campaign contributions. This appearance is attached especially to large contributions from those doing business with the city or trying to change its laws -- contractors, lobbyists, and unions. This appearance is most serious when the position has fiduciary obligations and is supposed to be independent rather than representative, such as the New York City Comptroller.

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