Campaign Finance & Pay-to-Play

Who expects a wonderful local government ethics surprise to come from New Jersey? Check out the Department of State's Pay-to-Play Ordinances page, which provides links, county by county, of municipal ordinances placing a limited contribution ban on those entering into municipal contracts.

End runs around ethics and campaign finance laws are one of my favorite topics to write about. A sizeable percentage of the creative energies of government officials and their attorneys seems to go into coming up with ways of getting around these laws. And then arguing that such laws are of little value since you can't plug loopholes as fast as they can invent them.

"You can buy Supreme Court races" under the current system, said Rep. Pedro Colón (D-Milwaukee). "The sign is outside: 'This court is for sale.'" (from an article in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel last week)

Update: February 2, 2010 (see below)

A recent New York Times article concerns a potential conflict in the city council speaker's office. But what is most interesting about the article is the bigger question it raises about differentiating between businesses and unions in pay-to-play laws.

One of the biggest problems with local government lobbyists is that they invariably have close contacts with those who run the city or county. So whenever they are involved in a matter, especially the bidding of large contracts, there is a strong appearance of impropriety, and people don't trust the bidding process.

Money rarely speaks as loudly and personally as it did for Tom Golisano, a billionaire who appears to have been the principal force in pushing the Democrats out of power in Albany, after he was snubbed by the party to which he has been a principal patron. And rarely has a good government advocate shown so clearly that he doesn't even know what government ethics is.

According to an article in today's Boston Globe, former Massachusetts Speaker of the House Sal DiMasi was indicted by a federal grand jury on a variety of public corruption charges (see my blog posts on DiMasi's

Broward County (FL), home of Ft. Lauderdale, is working on ethics reform, something Ft. Lauderdale itself did in 2007. Today, according to a piece on the Sun-Sentinel Broward Politics website, a county commissioner will be introducing a bill to prevent county commissioners from soliciting contributions for third parties, whether charities or other candidates, from those doing business with the county.

In third world countries, corruption is said to grease the wheels of commerce. We don't like to believe that this is true in the U.S., and we certainly don't have to grease the palms of ordinary government employees in order to get any service.

But what would happen if pay-to-play were truly brought to its knees?

An article in yesterday's New York Times points to yet another clever end run around ethics laws involving municipal bonds. Bond underwriters are not allowed to make campaign contributions, to prevent a pay-to-play environment. However, financial advisers, the people who hook local governments up with bond underwriters, are allowed to make campaign contributions. And so they do, in large quantities, it appears, even though they work closely with underwriters as a team.