Summer Reading: Corruption and American Politics V - Ethical Leadership and Lobbyist-Campaign Consultants

The fifth essay in Corruption and American Politics, an essay collection edited by Michael A. Genovese and Victoria A. Farrar-Meyers (Cambria, 2011), is by editor Michael Genovese, a professor at Loyola Marymount University. An essay on presidential corruption would not appear to have much relevance to local government ethics, but presidents, mayors, city managers, and other high-level local officials all have an important ethical leadership role to play in their governments.

Ethical Leadership
What Genovese says about the ethical leadership of a president applies equally to a mayor or city manager:

Presidents, no less than corporate executives, set the moral tone for their administrations, provide guidance as to what is acceptable or unacceptable behavior, and establish organizational norms and limits. Presidents demonstrate by word and deed the kind of behavior that will be tolerated, as well as the standards applicable to the entire administration.

Genovese looks at some of the presidents whose administrations were most corrupt. One thing he finds in common is that they were poor judges of character. They appointed people who tended to be out for themselves and who could not be trusted to even let the president know what they were doing. This weakness is usually accompanied by the tendency to stick by one's family and friends when they are accused of misconduct. Personal loyalty undermines moral authority. It makes personal loyalty rather than responsibility to the public the standard for an entire administration.

Genovese quotes Warren Harding as saying, "I have no trouble with my enemies. I can take care of my enemies all right. But my damn friends, my God damn friends; they're the ones that keep me walking the floor nights."

A second pattern Genovese found in his study is "almost unfettered access to the administration" by business people and their representatives. This can be an even more serious problem at the local level, where it often appears that contractors and developers effectively run a local government.

A third pattern is the failure to exercise control and discipline, allowing appointees to believe that they can get away with misconduct.

Secrecy is another characteristic of a poor ethics environment. Genovese quotes from the congressional report on the Iran-Contra scandal during the Reagan administration:

The common ingredients ... were secrecy, deception, and disdain for the law. … They viewed knowledge of their actions by others in the government as a threat to their objectives. … When exposure was threatened, they destroyed official documents and lied to cabinet officials, to the public, and to elected representatives in Congress.

Too often, money is seen to be the principal goal of ethical misconduct. But presidential corruption shows a different story. "In matters of money, presidents seem to have been for the most part uninvolved, but in matters of power and ideology (Watergate and Iran-Contra), presidents have been highly involved."

Reciprocity
In his essay "Corruption and Scandal in Washington: Have Lobbying and Ethics Reform Made a Difference?" James Thurber, a professor at American University, discusses an issue that is central to government ethics, but too often ignored:  reciprocity.

Reciprocity is one of the strongest embedded norms in public life. It is directly related to ethical dilemmas that occur in the linkage among consultants, lobbyists, and elected public officials. The "iron law of reciprocity" is like gravity. It is beyond dispute, but hard to confirm without rigorous testing. Reciprocity is defined as: "To return in kind or degree; the mutual or equivalent exchange or paying back of what one has received; ... mutual dependence, action or influence ...." Reciprocity is expected in personal relationships and it is a strong influence on political relationships … Reciprocity can be the basis of the movement of people through the political and government "revolving door".

In other words, reciprocity is an acceptable norm that leads to a great deal of unacceptable behavior. If not for reciprocity, there would be less problem with gifts or frequent meetings with those representing special interests. Reciprocity is, by definition, a form of special consideration, providing access, preferential treatment, and greater success in getting contracts, permits, and grants, as well as helpful legislation (or the prevention of regulation and other limitations).

Unlike bribery, where there is a direct relationship between one gift and another, in a relationship of ongoing reciprocity, there is no such relationship. The result is the same, but many jurisdictions treat them as if there were no similarities at all.

Lobbyist-Campaign Consultants
Thurber's essay focuses on the reciprocal relationships formed among campaign consultants, lobbyists, and officials, asking whether they "build an ethical blind spot and undermine the civic responsibility of the actors in a relationship."

He also notes that these relationships lack transparency. No one can know what occurred, only that such special relationships lead to preferential treatment.

A Los Angeles Case Study
The case study Thurber uses is a good one for those interested in local government ethics. The Los Angeles council was debating a contract for a new city theater. The contractor's lobbyist had been a campaign consultant to a council member, and was currently running her campaign for city controller. This council member became the contractor's chief backer on the council. Her relationship with the lobbyist was so close that he listened via her speaker phone to the council's discussion of the contract.

But she said that there was no problem. According to a February 11, 2001 article in the Los Angeles Times, she said that people can keep their relationships as lobbyists and lobbied separate from their roles as advisors and politicians. "It's a business relationship. You are paying for someone to run your campaign." The lobbyist's defense was, "Sometimes she votes on positions I support, and sometimes she doesn't." But then, as the council member told the Times, she often has friends on both sides of an issue.

The Advantage of Wearing Two Hats
Does a lobbyist's wearing of two hats help his clients? This lobbyist appears to think so. He wrote in a mailer to prospective lobbying clients in 1998, "The secret of Afriat's success is the political consulting arm of our firm—we represent elected officials in fund-raising and campaign management."

According to the Times article, more than a dozen city lobbyists had been consultants to local officials' campaigns. In fact, "seven of the 14 City Council members likely to vote on the matter have at some point hired for political work the same lobbyists whose clients are bidding on the contract."

Do Lobbyists Have Civic Responsibility?
The L.A. ethics commission considering barring elected officials from voting on issues involving lobbyists who had served as their campaign consultants, but decided not to. If they had, I'm sure a suit would have been filed on First Amendment grounds. Thurber believes that along with these First Amendment rights comes a "civic responsibility to the overall democratic system." I agree.

Robert Wechsler
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics

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