I want to revisit a situation I mentioned a few days ago in a post about ethics reform. Common Cause Rhode Island was recommending a reform to deal with the situation where gifts are made to officials by an organization that is not an "interested party" (and therefore not subject to the gift ban) because it does not do business with or lobby, and is not regulated, by the state, or by a local government, but may have members or supporters who do business or are regulated and/or that effectively, although not legally, lobby officials.

Here are three instances of ethics reform that, I hope, would not happen if someone involved had read the chapter on ethics reform in my Local Government Ethics Program book.

Today, the New York Times ran a length investigatory report on Walmart's extensive bribery of local Mexican officials intended to rush through permits and zoning approvals, reduce environmental impact fees, and gain the allegiance of these officials.

The Independence of Investigators
The report raises a few important local government ethics issues. One is the independence of investigators. A preliminary investigation was done by Walmart's home investigation unit, but when it recommended an extensive investigation, Walmart executives turned the investigation over to Walmart de Mexico executives implicated in the bribery scheme. This was despite advice from Walmart International's general counsel that, “The wisdom of assigning any investigative role to management of the business unit being investigated escapes me.”

According to the blog of Kansas City, MO's mayor, Sly James, the KC Commission on Ethics Reform will be holding a public hearing tomorrow on its draft ethics code.

It's clear from the draft that the commission made excellent use of the City Ethics Model Code. The result is a good draft that falls short in a few very important areas.

Most important, the ethics commission would be selected by the mayor. The mayor would even select who the chair is, something that is ordinarily left to a board or commission. Any time the commission is seen as letting off the mayor or a mayoral ally, or coming down hard on a mayoral opponent, it will undermine the public's trust in the ethics program. There would be a big conflict at the heart of a program designed to prevent conflicts and to gain the public's trust in its city government. Ethics commission independence, real and perceived, is the single most important part of an ethics program. It is the foundation on which everything else stands.

An excellent article on the front page of last Sunday's New York Times looks at a proposal by the federal Office of Governmental Ethics (OGE) to limit two exceptions to the prohibition on accepting gifts from lobbyists:  the "widely-attended gathering" (WAG) exception and the "social invitations" exception.

First, the proposal recognizes something the U.S. Supreme Court has been unable or unwilling to acknowledge:

If one views the problem of lobbyist gifts as the mere potential for some quid pro quo, then probably an invitation to a gala ball will not directly influence an official to take action benefiting the giver. But it is increasingly recognized that the more realistic problem is not the brazen quid pro quo, but rather the cultivation of familiarity and access that a lobbyist may use in the future to obtain a more sympathetic hearing for clients.

A few days too late for St. Patrick's Day, today's Irish Examiner has a wonderful story about catching officials involved in ethical misconduct relating to land use. It's an old story, but new to me, and probably new to you, as well. The occasion of the article is the publication of a 3,270-page report on a number of corrupt acts that occurred back in the 1990s in and around Dublin.