How many wrongs does it take to make a right?

According to a Sun-Sentinel article, a county commissioner in Broward County, home of Ft. Lauderdale, resigned on Tuesday after being arrested on seven counts of unlawful compensation (§838.016(1)) for ‘‘improperly advocating for, and benefiting from, numerous government grants written by her husband ... on behalf of the town of Southwest Ranches."

Things are moving along well with the Palm Beach County ethics initiative, which I've written about in earlier blog posts (1  2). An inspector general, selected by the ethics commission and two state government attorneys, started work on June 28, according to an article in the Sun-Sentinel. The next day, according to another Sun-Sentinel article, the county commission gave initial approval to placing on the November ballot a county charter amendment question that would give the county inspector general and the county ethics commission jurisdiction over the county's 38 municipalities.

On Independence Day weekend, it's worth remembering that independence does not come cheap, and that there are some things that are more important than independence.

One of those things is the public trust. There is a serious cost to our society when government officials place their independence from ethics enforcement above the public trust, that is, when government officials insist on legislative immunity. And there is a cost to officials, too:  their trial not by a neutral body in a formal proceeding that the public can have trust in, but rather by partisan accusations and media coverage based on the manipulation of limited facts and a limited understanding of the issues involved.

Time Limitations on Ethics Proceedings in Louisiana, and Why They're Bad
The Louisiana ethics board handles ethics, disclosure, campaign finance, and lobbying for the state and for the state's local governments. It is, like all ethics agencies, understaffed, underfunded, and overstretched. So according to an article in Monday's Baton Rouge Advocate, it has asked, among other things, for a longer period of time in which to do its work. The law now gives the board "one year from the date upon which a sworn complaint is received to either dismiss the complaint or file formal charges." (§708(A))

This seems reasonable. How long should it take simply to file charges? But this assumes (i) that there is no backlog of cases, and (ii) that everyone is cooperating. It also assumes that the ethics board can get quorums for its meetings, that there aren't other considerations, such as whether to turn the matter over to criminal authorities, and that related matters aren't discovered, expanding the investigation.

Can they convict him simply for failing to disclose information when he had no duty to disclose? No Alaska law required it, and there's no federal statute that requires it, so what did he do wrong?

— Donald Ayer, attorney for former Alaska state representative Bruce Weyhrauch (December 2009) (taken from an article on the ktuu.com website). Weyhrauch is accused of having taken a job with an oilfield service company while the company was lobbying the legislature for lower oil taxes (this was one little piece of a big scandal involving the company and multiple elected officials). See an earlier blog post about this case (a lower court motion against him was rejected by the Supreme Court last week, in light of the Skilling (as in Enron) decision)

The U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Skilling v. U.S. (June 24, 2010), rejecting the crime of honest services fraud, at least to the extent it goes beyond bribery and other tangible (that is, monetary) crimes, should be a call to arms for the good government and local government ethics communities. The war should consist of a demand for full-scale ethics and campaign finance laws, disclosure, training, advice, investigatory powers, funding, and enforcement.

What Ayer said, which is typical of lawyers and politicians alike, should be the battle cry. (Please note that I do not use martial imagery very often, except in fun or in reference to Maricopa County, AZ.)

According to an article in the Providence Journal, a Rhode Island state senator has been indicted on federal charges that he falsified documents to get mortgages and an auto loan worth more than $1.5 million. This same senator sponsored an unsuccessful resolution to let the legislature regulate its own ethics. The legislature failed to pass a resolution to let the people of Rhode Island decide whether to let the state ethics commission have full jurisdiction over legislators, so effectively they do regulate their own ethics.

After the indictment, Common Cause is calling for the legislature to reconvene and allow a referendum on this issue.

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