Ethics in Congress VI - Quotations and Ideas (Summer Reading)

My last post about Dennis F. Thompson's book Ethics in Congress: From Individual to Institutional Corruption is a miscellany of interesting quotes and valuable ideas.

Study on the Effect of Allegations on Voting:  "Campaign and conflict of interest violations produced losses [for those accused of these violations] on the order of 1% of the expected vote, while bribery charges led to losses of about 12%. Members charged with morals offenses suffer the most: they lost more than 20% of their expected vote.”

Primary Interests [that is, a legislator's legislative duties]:  "Instead of trying to define conflicts by making the secondary interest [the legislator's personal interest] more specific, we should try to make the primary interest more specific, … pay more attention to the specific nature of a member’s role in institution. If Sen. Kerr chaired a subcommittee dealing with the oil depreciation allowance, the conflict would be more serious than if he had no special institutional responsibility for legislation affecting the oil industry. … The more closely a member’s primary interests … relate to secondary interests, … the more stringent the restriction should be. In some cases, members could be required to divest themselves of any substantial holdings that may be affected by the actions of the committee.”

Advice: “[T]he advising function would be more valuable if members used it more often for ethical enlightenment than for political cover.”

Indirect Conflicts:  "There is ... no good reason to believe that connections that are proximate and explicit are any more corrupt than connections that are indirect and implicit. The former may be only the more detectable, not necessarily the more deliberate or damaging, form of corruption. Corruption that works through patterns of conduct, institutional routines, and informal norms may leave fewer footprints but more wreckage in its path.”

The campaign finance system is the “single most important cause of legislative corruption,” but it receives too much attention, to the point that it has “become an excuse for ignoring the deficiency of Congress’s own practices.”

Non-Financial Conflicts:  "Rules on conflicts of interest usually focus on financial gain, not because it is more pernicious than other secondary interests but because its benefits are more fungible and its value more objective. Money is useful for more purposes and easier to regulate by impartial rules. … A preoccupation with financial interests should not distract us from looking for new ways to control these other kinds of influence."

"Honest government is a good in itself” and it is also a precondition for the making of good public policy. “In this respect, it is more important than any single policy because all other policies depend on it.”

Disclosure Only:  "[News] stories on the financial resources of [legislative] members are rarely presented in a way that would best help voters make balanced judgments about the ethics of members. … By itself, disclosure may merely further undermine confidence in government, causing citizens to suspect the motives of legislators but providing no constructive ways to restore trust. Disclosing a possible conflict of interest merely reveals a problem without providing any guidance for resolving it.”

Robert Wechsler
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics

203-859-1959