Local vs. State Ethics Programs -- An Excellent Column on the Topic
I raise this matter not to deal with all its aspects, but due to reading an excellent guest column this week on nj.com (a consortium of six New Jersey newspapers) by Paula A. Franzese and Daniel J. O'Hern.
The guest columnists were appointed in 2004 by the then New Jersey governor as Special Counsel for Ethics Reform, and given four months to survey and write a report on New Jersey ethics laws and how to reform them. Ms. Franzese is currently chair of the New Jersey State Ethics Commission.
Former Judge O'Hern sadly died just before the guest column appeared in print; an excellent memorial to him by Ms. Franzese can be found here. There's a lot of wisdom about government ethics in this memorial column.
In their guest column they wrote:
- Too many transgressions continue to
occur at the local level of
government, where applicable laws, methods of detection and enforcement
mechanisms lack consistency, clarity and muscle. The entrenched system of home rule in our
state is both a blessing
and a curse. We simultaneously have the Jeffersonian ideal of hands-on
government, with its promise of participatory democracy, and the
unwieldy "Wild West" of a system where corruption can escape detection
and punishment.
There is a state Local Government Ethics Law, but it spreads out
authority and has vague provisions and little in the way of teeth. And
its standards are interpreted by many hundreds of jurisdictions.
There is now a task force looking into local government ethics in
New Jersey. The guest columnists recommend that local government
entities be brought within the
jurisdiction of the state ethics commission and the state's Uniform
Ethics
Code, which now applies only to
the executive branch of the state government. Here are the advantages
that the columnists see in doing this:
- mandatory and uniform ethics training, as
well as routine monitoring. The state Ethics Commission is armed with an ethics training officer
and an easy-to-understand, on-line training system. Its ethics
compliance officer conducts mandatory compliance reviews. To promote
the goals of transparency and public access to information, its website
posts public official and employee financial disclosure statements, all
on a searchable public database. Its toll-free reporting hotline, where
anonymous complaints can be filed and questions asked, is an immensely
helpful tool. Significantly, however, many of the inquiries made
involve matters of local government, outside the commission's present
reach.
This column shows some of the weaknesses of local government ethics
programs and some of the strengths of a state program. In another blog
entry, I will consider some of the strengths of local government ethics
programs and some of the weaknesses of a state program.
The columnists also note something that is important and unusual,
regarding jurisdiction over government contractors.
- Our research made plain that it is not
enough to impose strictures on
government employees. Most ethics violations do not occur without the
participation and consent of third parties. We recommended, and there
is now in place at the state level, a business ethics code, which
regulates entities who do business with government. A uniform system of
ethics laws would make that code binding as well on those who do
business, or aim to do business, at the local level of government.
I will have to look closely at this business
ethics code (and the underlying statutory provisions) and consider
adding valuable provisions to the City Ethics Model Code.
Robert Wechsler
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics
---