Enforcement & Complaints

Since most local ethics commissions do not have the authority to initiate their own investigations or draft their own complaints (although in many cases this authority is not expressly withheld), there is a special role that former EC members, especially chairs, can play:  filing complaints that no one else will file.

Florida Senate Bill 606 (attached; see below) is one of the worst ethics reform bills I have ever read. But it is far worse than the words it consists of. What makes it worse is that, with respect to laws that affect local officials, it is largely the work of the Florida League of Cities (this was confirmed to me by representatives of both the League and state senator Jeff Clemens, the bill's sponsor).

A passing statement in yesterday's New York Times article on the continuously unfolding story of NJ governor Chris Christie's bullying led me to wonder why it is that indictments based on sting operations focus only on the government officials who give in to the sting's temptations. Not only is this not fair to the many officials who withstand the temptations, but it also gives a false picture to the public of the officials they elect.

Who should be allowed to file an ethics complaint? Certainly any citizen of the jurisdiction. But what about multiple citizens of the jurisdiction? Should an ethics commission exclude a complaint from them?

Settlements of ethics proceedings are usually a good thing for everyone involved. They save officials the cost of a proceeding and prevent officials from digging themselves deeper and deeper into defenses, denials, and cover-ups, which are usually more harmful to the public trust than any ethics violation. They save taxpayers the cost of a proceeding and of possible appeals. They save the community the pain of going through an extended fight over an ethics violation, which can hurt its reputation, escalate, and have long-term ramifications.

I've been thinking about what I wrote in yesterday's blog post with respect to sanctioning police officers who knew about the disability scam but said nothing. The principal cause for this, besides each individual's self-interest, was a common uniformed department's conspiracy of silence, a loyalty to colleagues that takes precedence over loyalty to the community.

When the criminal justice system finds that government officials are involved in a conspiracy to pursue illegal conduct in an environment of fear and intimidation, they bring racketeering charges under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO). This is what happened with the Atlanta schools cheating scandal.

Here is the story of a good settlement reached in an Ohio ethics proceeding involving a council member from a very small city. According to a recent article in the Canton Rep, the council member voted on an addendum to the lease of a golf course despite the fact that he lived on adjoining property.

The Boss of the Ethics Director's Bosses
According to an article this week in the Free Times, an FOI lawsuit was filed against South Carolina's ethics commission, because its director had said that a letter informing the governor of an ethics violation had not been sent and had been destroyed, when in fact it was sent and did exist.

The long-running Carrigan case (Carrigan I, that is) may have finally come to an end. And it's a very good end. After the U.S. Supreme Court threw out Carrigan's absurd argument that a council member has a First Amendment free speech right to vote on legislative matters where he is conflicted, the Nevada Supreme Court concluded that, if a council member chooses not to seek ethics advice and votes on a matter involving someone with whom he has a special relationship, he cannot say that the conflict provision was unconstitutionally vague with respect to due process.