It is common for councils to engage in backsliding shortly after creating or improving a government ethics program. When there has been a scandal, councils often go further than they would like to go in establishing ethics rules and procedures. When attention to ethics matters has lessened, it often seems to be a good time to make the program more what council members would like, and this almost always means two things:  (1) making it easier for them to accept gifts and (2) making it harder for citizens to file ethics complaints or for complaints to lead to findings of an ethics violation.

What is the worst thing a government official can do when a conflict situation becomes public? Is it worse to misrepresent the law, to make accusations against those making the conflict situation public, or to ignore the situation and hope nobody notices?

New York governor Andrew Cuomo has done all of the above with respect to the exposure of a secret gift of $2 million by an association of gambling companies to a 501(c)(4) organization closely associated with the governor. According to an article in today's New York Times, the gift was given, in two parts separated by four days, at just the time the governor wrote an op-ed article supporting the expansion of casino gambling in New York state, and the 501(c)(4) organization added legalized gambling to its list of priorities.

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.