Safra Working Papers

Two big local ethics/election stories come from Contra Costa, CA and Tallahassee, FL.

Ethics Reform Package Features a Different Sort of Public Campaign Financing Program

Republican candidates in Cumberland County, in southern New Jersey (pop. 150,000), are pushing for several ethics reforms, including some fresh ideas.

Yesterday, Philadelphia's Task Force on Ethics and Campaign Finance Reform released a 58-page report (plus ethics laws) requested by the city's mayor and council president in 2008.

The report recommends a large number of reforms, most of them stricter than what exists, some of them less strict and more realistic. Here are some of the most important recommendations:

Make ethics rules applicable to all city officials and employees. Now some rules apply only to the executive branch.

It would be really helpful if people could find recommendations for ethics reform all in one place, but this rarely happens. Ethics task forces and ethics commissions that ask for such recommendations from good government groups, officials, and academics rarely make them available to the public online. Collections of such recommendations would be a useful resource both for those interested in government ethics in the particular city or county, and for those elsewhere who are considering ethics reform and looking for good ideas.

Referendum Requires Ethics Training and Increases Penalties
I learned at the COGEL conference last week that a referendum passed in New York City last month requires all city officials and employees to receive conflict of interest training. The Conflicts of Interest Board (COIB) does provide training, but officials and employees are not required to take it. This change is extremely valuable.

I'm always fascinated by the myriad ways in which local governments approach ethics reform. An article in the Greenwich Time last week sheds some light on the state of ethics reform in Greenwich, CT.

New Orleans must have the largest number of civic organizations that focus on government ethics, and the greatest amount of activity among them. There is the Metropolitan Crime Commission, a watchdog group that has filed ethics complaints (see my two blog posts that mention them:  1  2 ).

Local government attorneys have special conflict of interest problems. Should there be ethics rules particularly aimed toward them? Here's a recent example of a situation that could have been prevented by such rules. In Reading, Pennsylvania, a city councilman asked the city's Board of Ethics for an advisory opinion concerning the fact that the Reading Area Water Authority had contracts with a company owned by the authority's executive director.

Sometimes even a wrongheaded ethics complaint can do good, by showing how wrongheaded a town's government ethics program is.

“How he is treated is important. He’s going to fight for his name. Rather than accept language he disagrees with, he would rather fight it out. This is his life.”

These are the words of an adviser to congressman Charles Rangel about why his month-long settlement negotiations with the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct broke down.

Ethics training is a problem at the local level. It's expensive, and there aren't many experienced local government ethics trainers around. Online ethics training has recently become the answer, but even this is difficult to get people to do. As I wrote a couple of years ago in a blog entry and a comment to the City Ethics Model Code, many officials are cynical about it and feel it's a waste of time.

I am conducting a national research study on government ethics programs with a focus on training. This research is being done in connection with the Ethics Center of the University of North Florida. Cities across the U.S. are being studied as to their ethics program structure, training requirements and training methods. In reviewing programs, one city deserves to be mentioned—Sioux Falls, South Dakota, nicknamed “the best little city in America”. The population is 154,997 and is ranked #150 in U.S. cities by population. In 1979 the State Ethics Commission in South Dakota was eliminated.

Transparency is one of the most important elements of government ethics. And yet government ethics itself is often kept secret. Respect for the privacy of those investigated is given preference over the rights of residents to know what is going on. Ethics commissions often do not file annual reports and, when they are required to, the reports are rarely placed on a city's website.

I am a proponent of ethics waivers. But only if they are provided by an independent ethics commission. When they are provided by high-level officials or their appointees, they appear to be self-serving. Why self-serving? Because they create precedents that will enable those who make the precedents to themselves get ethics waivers.

The reason I haven't written about George Anderson is that he has done too much, and been too controversial, for me to get a handle on him. In other words, laziness. He has been an ethics and non-ethics watchdog in Georgia for many years, filing numerous ethics and other sorts of complaints both at the state and at the local level. He heads an organization called Ethics in Government, which does not seem to have a website.

Last month, I wrote about how the Green Bay ethics board hadn't met much more than the Packers had won Super Bowls. Well, now that the Packers have won another, it's time for the ethics board to meet again (the last time it met was in 1999).

One way to deal with possible conflicts is to nip them in the bud by not allowing any personal communications between officials and interested parties ("ex parte communications"). All communications must be official, either documentary or at formal meetings or negotiations.

From the Los Angeles Times, 29 July 2005

By David Rosenzweig

Albert Robles, the charismatic and volatile South Gate treasurer who dominated politics in the small, blue-collar city during two tumultuous years, was convicted Thursday of soliciting more than $1.8 million in bribes from bidders on municipal contracts.

According to an article in this week's Atlanta Journal-Constitution, a rule prohibiting Georgia state employees from accepting gifts over $25 is not being enforced. At all.