Local or State Jurisdiction Over Local Legislators?

Is local government ethics enforcement appropriate for local legislators? This question is currently being asked in Sarasota County, FL and Wyandotte County/Kansas City, KS. A key to whether this is the right question is who is asking the question. In both cases, it is local legislators who have been respondents in ethics enforcement proceedings, and some of their legislative colleagues.

According to an article this week on the KSHB-TV website, a Wyandotte County commissioner was censured twice by the ethics commission, which requested that he resign (the commissioner refused to resign). This led the commissioner, at a special session of the county commission, to "question the process and how complaints are investigated. He believes the current setup is biased and influenced by local politics." He and some of his colleagues want to explore the idea of eliminating the local ethics program and instead utilizing the state’s ethics commission, which is not known for being very effective with respect to local officials.

One county commissioner argued that it is hard for people on an ethics commission to judge those in ther community, whom they may personally know. But this is what juries do every day. If EC members are chosen not by politicians, but by community organizations, they will rarely have a personal relationship with government officials. They will also not be considered "influenced by local politics."

Wyandotte County has an odd EC selection process. Members are selected by three officials, the administrative judge of the county district court, the district attorney of the county, and the legislative auditor of the county. This is not optimal, because they are all officials, even if, with the exception of the district attorney, not politically-oriented officials. But it should provide sufficient independence, if they take into account the importance of selecting individuals who are not politically active.

But the same commissioner continued, “I think some people would say it's rather Wyandotte County-like to take the position that we should just take care of anything within our own borders and not ask anyone from the outside to look over our shoulders and see how we're doing things.” This is simply not true. Cities and counties all over the country choose to have their own ethics programs, even when there is a state program, because they know how important it is to have training, advice, disclosure, and oversight available at a level that no state program can provide. They also know how ineffective state programs can be.

Just having a local program sends a message from the leadership to the rest of the government organization that dealing responsibly with conflict situations is a high priority. As the mayor put it, "I don't think [other Kansas cities and counties] are going to pay the level of attention and level of detail that the citizens of this government expect from ethics day in and day out.”

The Wyandotte County ethics code is unusual. The program could benefit from adopting some best practices and increasing the selection of sanctions. But getting rid of it appears to be just retaliation.

According to an article Saturday in the Herald-Tribune, the county administrator fired the ethics officer on March 27, despite the fact that the ethics officer's "most recent performance evaluation [had determined that he] met or exceeded expectations in all categories, drawing high marks for personal integrity." The ethics officer says he was fired "because he refused to back off from investigating complaints against the elected County Commission." The ethics officer was the first to hold this position in the two-year-old ethics program, after ten employees, including the county administrator, had been fired or resigned due to a procurement scandal.

The new county administrator (the one in between had been fired by the county commission) says that he wanted to install his "own team." But an ethics officer should not be part of any official's team, because the official is subject to the ethics program's jurisdiction.

According to a county commissioner who was investigated by the ethics officer and the county auditor (at the ethics officer's request), the question is whether the local ethics program or the state ethics program should enforce ethics laws against county commissioners. He believes it should be done at the state level. As in Kansas, state enforcement and state laws are notably weak.

But this county commissioner is not the only one calling for an end to local ethics officer jurisdiction over them. And, like the Wyandotte County commissioners, they talk as if they were not acting in their self-interest at all. They will have to hope that no one understands the matter enough and that good government groups will not actively oppose their hopes. With respect to Sarasota County, one good government group, Integrity Florida, has already stated its opposition to ending local jurisdiction over county commissioners.

Robert Wechsler
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics

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