The Other Side of Nepotism

There is usually another side of the coin, and that other side is often ignored in drafting a government ethics code. The other side of the nepotism coin came up recently in an ethics proceeding in Stamford, CT.

According to an article this week in the Stamford Advocate, a former finance board member filed an ethics complaint against a former colleague, who still sits on the finance board, for intervening to help a cousin, and member of her household (which in Stamford is considered "immediate family"), who is a city employee.

One piece of evidence provided by the complainant is that the respondent e-mailed the mayor after learning that the complainant, then a finance board member, was seeking to reorganize the department where the respondent's cousin worked, which might have meant the cousin losing her job. The e-mail included the following:

"I am convinced that Joe [the complainant] is going after Connie [the cousin] because she is related to me. Not only is that blatant harassment but it is politics at its worst. Appreciate your intervention."

So, the respondent apparently acted on behalf of her cousin because she believed that her cousin was bearing the brunt of the political battles between these two finance board members.

Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that the respondent was right, that her opponent was trying to hurt her by going after her cousin. And let's change the nature of the matter a bit so that it does not involve a request to a mayor, which is rarely prohibited by a nepotism provision, but rather the hiring of an official's relative (I originally wrote "firing" instead of "hiring," but firing too is usually on the other side of the nepotism coin).

Is it any better to oppose the hiring of a political opponent's relative, who will not be overseen by the opponent (oversight is commonly another nepotism prohibition), than it is to push for the hiring of one's own relative? Is it any better to try to harm an opponent's relative than it is to try to benefit one's own relative? Both are forms of preferential treatment apparently based on a family relationship. But where one is commonly prohibited, the other is not.

One argument for including only one side and not the other is that what gets a community angry is seeing jobs given to officials' relatives, thereby excluding those without family connections. But if the community's feelings were what mattered most, local governments would be more responsive to the same community anger that arises when people with other types of connections get jobs instead of ordinary citizens, what is known as "cronyism." But cronyism is also left out of most ethics codes.

A community may not care as much about family members not getting jobs because of their relationship to an official, but if they knew that officials were taking their political battles out on family members, that would not give them much respect for the leaders of their community. The other side of the coin may not be as harmful to a community's trust in its government, but that doesn't make it right or acceptable.

The real problem is evidentiary. It's easy to show that an official has sought to influence the hiring of a relative. It is hard to show that an official has sought to influence the hiring of someone else's relative due primarily to the family relationship. But there are cases where an official comes out and says this was his motive, even brags to people that he "showed her one" by keeping her relative from getting a government job.

But this raises another problematic issue. Government ethics does not generally deal with motives. To prove nepotism, one need not prove that an official intervened for someone because she was a relative rather than, say, the best person for the job. The fact of the relationship is all the proof that is needed. Similarly, when a contractor gives a council member a $1,000 gift, it does not need to be proven that the gift was in any way tied to a vote on a particular contract. A gift from a restricted source is simply prohibited, without any need to show motive or intent.

In our case, the other side of the nepotism coin, as ugly as it is, can be proved only by a show of motive. That makes it difficult for a government ethics program to deal with, however wrong the conduct might be. Considering this, it is probably best not to make such misconduct an ethics violation.

However, such misconduct should be considered by an ethics board in a case such as the one in Stamford. If an official violates a nepotism provision because her cousin is bearing the brunt of political enmity against her, this should be taken into consideration as a mitigating circumstance in determining the sanction against her.

Unfortunately, the Stamford ethics board does not have the authority to determine sanctions, beyond a reprimand. Therefore, it would be up to the city's Board of Representatives, that is, the political allies of the complainant and respondent to determine any further sanction. Whatever is decided will unfortunately look like a political decision rather than a neutral decision made by independent individuals.

Robert Wechsler
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics

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