Safra Working Papers

Congressmen and -women sometimes act as if they didn't know the first thing about government ethics. Even when their actions are more in the public eye than usual, many of them unnecessarily, and selfishly, do the wrong thing. This week, Congress seems to be all about Roger Clemens, who is definitely of more interest than health care, the economy, or Iraq. And what did 25 of the 40 members of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform do before providing oversight over Roger Clemens?

Government officials should, I think, focus more on what their actions teach Americans. In effect, each of them is teaching an ongoing civics course.

For many years, Congress have been giving us a course on how self-regulation in the ethics sphere simply doesn't work.

There is a lot of disagreement over whether contingency fee arrangements between client and lobbyist should be permitted. Many cities, counties, and states prohibit arrangements where lobbyists are paid only if they succeed. The principal reason is that this arrangement encourages ethical misconduct. It encourages lobbyists to do everything they can to win, which may be good in a private adversary suit, but is not appropriate in a public context, where winning involves changes in public policy or obtaining public contracts, grants, or permits.

The situation discussed in the previous blog entry also provides a good example of why it is important to have a contract avoidance provision in a local government ethics code. Here is the one in the City Ethics Model Code:

The big news this week on the government ethics front is Alaskan Senator Ted Stevens' conviction on seven counts of making false statements on financial disclosure forms, regarding home renovations paid for by an oil executive.

The former chair of the Venice in Peril Fund wrote a disturbing piece for the September 25 issue of the New York Review of Books about corruption in Venice. This corruption derived largely from a major project:  the building of flood protection barriers, known as MOSE. Although this project was larger than those in most cities, the misuse of funds, the failure to competitively bid, the false invoicing, the nepotism and the cronyism are no different.

A year ago, I wrote about New York City Council's earmark funds and the ways they were being abused. Atlanta's council members have a different sort of fund, not intended to help their constituents, but intended to help themselves.