Enforcement & Complaints

The headline of a New York Times article today is, "Ethics in Play, Voters Oust Incumbents Under Inquiry." One's first impression upon reading the article is that people are throwing unethical politicians out of office. The system is working. But upon further thought, it doesn't seem to be working very well at all.

It is important to bring contractors into an ethics program, requiring them to disclose gifts their employees make to officials, and to deal responsibly with possible conflicts they are aware of. Businesses tend to deal with such things internally. Bringing them into an ethics program requires them to recognize that dealing with conflict situations internally is not enough.

Last week, I wrote blog posts about how Chicago's ethics program needs more independence and more transparency than the Ethics Reform Task Force recommended.

A number of important issues arise from a case before the Iowa Ethics and Campaign Disclosure Board (ECDB) last week. The issues include: (1) how to treat an inadequate complaint; (2) how to treat a complainant in a proceeding, and (3) what to do when an ethics code and rules may be inadequate to a situation where there is a strong appearance of impropriety.

Is it important that an ethics complaint be based on information that is known personally? Some ethics codes require this. But the fact is that many ethics violations are done secretly. It can take some serious, professional investigation to obtain the facts and relevant documents. This is why investigations by journalists are so valuable. What they uncover is often used by citizens, good government organizations, and others as the basis for an ethics complaint.

It's always disheartening to see high-level officials misuse an ethics program for the sake of personal revenge or, as the official says in the case I'm looking at here, to get "my name cleared."

An interesting question arose in an ethics proceeding in Kennesaw, GA, a city of 30,000 just outside of Atlanta. According to an article in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and a Kennesaw Watch blog post, both dated July 17, soon after an ethics complaint was filed against the city's mayor, the mayor sent two text messages to the complainant, asking for a meeting “man to man face to face."

Should an ethics violation be an impediment to future jobs? In general, I don't think so, especially when the violation was handled responsibly, that is, without a denial, cover-up, and costly, unnecessary investigation and hearing process. But sometimes ethics violations involve much more than the failure to deal responsibly with a conflict.

Despite writing this blog for six years, I keep finding important areas of government ethics that I have not discussed. One such area involves dealing with the possible conflicts of outside auditors. Large cities and counties have internal auditors or comptrollers, but most local governments employ the services of external auditing firms, just as companies do. These auditors have special duties toward their clients, that is, to the community, not to the individuals who hire them and with whom they work. And yet these auditors owe their contracts to the individuals they work with.

Check out a valuable essay on pension forfeiture by Dylan Scott, which was posted on the Governing website in February. The essay looks at the various arguments for and against pension forfeiture, looks at how these laws come about (after scandals), and provides information about state pension forfeiture laws, with links to the laws. It's an excellent resource on this issue.