Safra Working Papers

One thing that's good about local government is that so much of it is done by volunteers. Volunteers aren't professional politicians. They have something better to do with their time. Yes, most of them do.

Sometimes a conflict situation makes you take a fresh look at common ethics provisions. This is true of a matter that has arisen in Poughkeepsie, New York (pronounced Pah-kip'-see), home of Vassar College, according to an article in Tuesday's Poughkeepsie Journal.

Conflicts of interest are generally not seen to apply to local party committees. There are almost never limitations on membership or voting on such committees by local government employees, contractors, developers, grantees, or others seeking financial benefits from the government.

Update: February 5, 2010 (see below)

Here's an interesting dual position question, that is, a question involving one individual holding two government positions. The most important conflict involved in dual positions is that you cannot consistently fulfill your fiduciary obligations to one constituency while fulfilling your obligations to the other. See my blog post on state-local dual positions for a discussion of more possible dual-position conflicts.

My blog entries must often seem like attacks on business interests. One reason is that conflicts are usually about personal financial interests conflicting with a government official's obligations to the public, and our democratic values require that the official's fiduciary obligations take precedence. And where there are financial interests, there are usually businesses. But that is not always the case. Obligations themselves can conflict, without any direct financial interest.

If "conflict of interest" were a cause of action, what would it be? A matter right in the small city next to my town answers this question, and gives a new angle by which to view conflicts.

According to an Associated Press article yesterday, a New York City school principal "didn't think there was a conflict of interest because there was no exchange of money."

Can grades be evidence of a conflict of interest? This is what the Cook County prosecutor's office is effectively arguing, according to an article in the Chicago Tribune.

Most ethics codes effectively define a conflict of interest as a conflict between an official's personal financial interest and an official's obligation to the public interest. But this leaves out an enormous number of personal interests, many of which are themselves financial, including the financial interests of family members, business associates, and favorite charities.

This year, the Rhode Island ethics commission, which has jurisdiction over local governments, has been bouncing around the issue of conflicts of interest relating to local officials' involvement in  negotiations with a union, where they or their spouse is a member of a different local union that shares the same umbrella union and, often, the same negotiators and some of the same funds. The public statements on this issue, from representatives of unions and good government organizations, and the quandaries of EC members make valuable reading.

San Francisco's Conflict of Interest code has an unusual provision about voting on one's own conduct or position. You would think this provision goes without saying, but I can assure you it does not.

§3.210. Voting on Own Character or Conduct.

Areas to check:

1. Using office for private gain
2. using organization resources for personal purposes
3. soliciting gifts or accepting gifts from persons doing business with the organization
4. seeking or accepting private compensation for doing one's work (gratuities)
5. soliciting political contributions or political activity from subordinates
6. disclosure of confidential organization information or using this information for private purposes
7. appearing before organization agencies on behalf of private interests or representing private

Fred Anderson's review of Gordon S. Wood's book Revolutionary Characters: What Made the Founders Different in a recent issue of the New York Review of Books contains a passage on government ethics that gives an interesting context to our thoughts about it. 'Eighteenth-century British America ...

Many local government ethics codes define a conflict of interest as existing only when an official stands to receive a financial benefit from his or her action or inaction. But real and perceived conflicts exist even when there is no financial benefit to an official. Important examples include benefits to relatives and business associates, where the official only benefits indirectly, while others benefit directly.

"Passion" is not the first word that comes to mind when one thinks about municipal ethics (but it would be interesting to know what word does first come to mind). And yet passion is what you can find in an article and on-line discussion about a current conflict controversy in Billings, Montana. At first glance, it seems to be a minor conflict problem (which is what many discussants passionately consider it to be).

You be the judge. According to an article in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, a board member of a Georgia-based insurance company set up ten PACs in Alabama that together gave $120,000 — ten times the legal limit — to a candidate for Georgia insurance commissioner.

As we know, the devil's in the details. In government ethics codes, this means the language. In the case I will look at here, the devil's in the verbs.

Many people believe that conflicts of interest are in and of themselves bad, and that government ethics laws should prevent those with conflicts of interest from becoming public servants. Many people believe that government ethics is about being good or bad. When the two come together in one person and one speech, the result can be fireworks.

People who have misconceptions about government ethics also tend not to be able to distinguish between different sorts of conflict situation. Here, the problem was distinguishing between pre-existing conflicts and conflicts created by events.

In the Indiana Secretary of State race, the headlines are all about voter fraud. But the bigger problem, I think, involves the failure of one of the candidates to differentiate himself from his seat on the Fishers city council.