Do Chinese walls (that is, mechanisms that separate someone from information or involvement in a matter) work in conflict situations in government? And what considerations determine whether they work or not?

One consideration is whether, even with the Chinese wall, there is still an appearance of a conflict. Another consideration is whether the individual will still have access to the information or still be involved in the matter despite the Chinese wall; that is, whether the Chinese wall is really a Chinese screen.

There are two important Chinese walls in the news the last couple of days. One involves congressional representatives in the position of choosing defense-related earmarks and their access to information about which recipients of those earmarks made campaign contributions to them, at what amounts and at what times. The other involves what was apparently a sweetheart deal between Florida and the United States Sugar Company, where the governor's chief of staff's law firm represented U.S. Sugar in the negotiations.

Influence. It's a big word in a lot of government ethics laws, and a word that those who write such laws should think at least twice about.

As everyone knows, New York Governor David Paterson has been accused by the NY Commission on Public Integrity (CPI) of having violated the state's gift ban by asking for and receiving five tickets to the first game of last year's World Series, at Yankee Stadium. But the reports are, of course, ignoring the language of the law. Here it is:

Governors Aren't Always Governors
The involvement of New York governor David Paterson in his aide's domestic abuse matter gets right to the heart of government ethics.

According to an article in today's New York Times, Paterson told a state employee and mutual friend of his and the domestic abuse victim's, “Tell her the governor wants her to make this go away."

New York City has had more problems with council earmarks than Washington, D.C. (see recent blog post on D.C.), and now the city's ombudsman has come up with a different approach, an approach from outside the council, in fact, from someone with no actual jurisdiction over the council. His plan shows that ethics officers or bodies can make a difference even where they have no actual jurisdiction.

This month, in Portland, CT, home of the stone used to build New York City's brownstones, the new ethics commission found that it was a violation of the town's ethics code for the board of selectmen (the town's management board) to hire attorneys who had given campaign contributions to the board of selectmen majority's party town committee, according to the EC's minutes. The contributions of the particular attorneys were $20-250.

Cronyism is a tough problem to deal with. First, it's hard to define and, therefore, to enforce. Second, it's not clear that government ethics is the right place to deal with cronyism. Third, it's questionable whether most instances of cronyism create an appearance of impropriety so much as create an opportunity for personal and political attack.

Special Counsel Robert S. Bennett's report on the District of Columbia council's earmark grants and personal services contracts was made public yesterday by the Washington City Paper. Before discussing Bennett's recommendations, I should disclose that City Ethics was asked by the D.C. council to advise them on related ethics issues, and we met shortly with two of Mr. Bennett's associates, but were not involved in any way in the investigation or preparation of the Bennett report.

It's an excellent report, and its recommendations, especially regarding council earmark grants, are must reading in any city that allows or is contemplating this sort of grant. The earmark recommendations start on p. 97 of the report (p. 100 of the PDF file).