Conflicts of Interest

I did a huge amount of reading this summer for a paper I wrote for the journal Public Integrity (and otherwise). The first piece of reading I'm going to talk about is one of the otherwise.

Ethics provisions dealing with contracts often ignore subcontractors. This leaves open a big loophole, through which an official can get a big piece of a contract by hiding behind a contractor. This is part of a larger problem: ignoring indirect benefits.

There are two ways to write a nepotism provision. One is to have a short, straightforward prohibition, and allow requests for a waiver under special circumstances. The most frequent circumstance would be a small town or school system where there are not a lot of prospective employees to choose from.

The other way is the one chosen by Louisiana:  three pages of exceptions from the general rule (attached; see below).

Five years ago, I wrote a blog post about gifts and reciprocity, based on a classic anthropological work, Lewis Hyde's The Gift.

"[Standard & Poor's's ratings have always been] uninfluenced by conflicts of interest."

—Spokesperson for S&P, in response to a government lawsuit saying that S&P's ratings have been influenced by their conflicts of interest. Quoted in today's New York Times

One of the worst times to create a conflict of interest is in the midst of labor negotiations. This is what has happened recently in San Francisco, where Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) is negotiating contracts with its three unions. There was a short strike in July, and now there are negotiations with an August 4 deadline.

In Hawaii, "Aloha" is not just a greeting. It also is a way of treating people, of thanking them. In other words, it often involves a gift. That explains the headline of a Honolulu Civil Beat article yesterday, "Can Too Much Aloha Be a Bad Thing? Ask Hawaii's Ethics Commission."

Does a council member who is a realtor have a conflict with respect to any council matter that affects real estate, including a matter that affects property values ? That appears to be the view of NJ Superior Court Judge Grasso in a decision this week, according to an article in Thursday's Asbury Park Press.

On April 30, the D.C. ethics board reached a settlement with a council member (attached; see below), whereby he was admonished for having "used the prestige of his office or his public position for the private gain" of a company by influencing health department personnel to leave the site of the business without issuing a notice of closure, allowing the business to continue to operate for several more hours.

Many major cities do not prohibit gifts from those seeking special benefits from the city government (restricted sources) to family members of city officials. Such a prohibition may seem a stretch, at least theoretically. How can a government interfere in the gifts given to an official's family members? Consider this situation, from 2011, which recently became public.