FL League of Cities' Ethics Proposals IV - Local Govt. Assocs. Should Not Lobby re Conflicts of Interest

This is the last of four blog posts on Florida Senate Bill 606 (attached; see below), one of the worst ethics reform bills I have ever read.

The Florida League of Cities was deeply involved in drafting these supposed ethics reforms, which I criticize in my last three blog posts. The question needs to be asked:  Was the League acting for its members as officials representing the public interest or as individuals with personal interests that might conflict with their obligations to their constituents?

If it's their personal interests that are being represented, which I think is the case, another, longer question needs to be asked:  Is it appropriate to use the taxpayer funds with which the League of Cities operates in order to act in the personal interest of individual members,

1. To whose advantage it is to be able to both accept gifts and not be required to disclose them;

2. To whose advantage it is to prevent ethics complaints from being filed, by increasing the penalties that complainants may have to pay;

3. To whose advantage it is to make it appear illegal to disclose ethics allegations to the public;

4. To whose advantage it is to be able to depend on the ethics advice of government attorneys, even when these attorneys lack ethics expertise and provide erroneous, sometimes biased advice; and

5. To whose advantage it is to prevent countywide ethics programs from effectively regulating the ethical misconduct of officials in the cities within their borders, even when the county's citizens have voted to do this?

My answer to these questions is a strong No. This is an inappropriate use of taxpayer funds and a misuse of office by the League's members. And yet this is what the taxpayer-funded Florida League of Cities did by lobbying for, partially drafting, and fully supporting SB 606. To the extent the public comes to understand what has happened, through explanations by the news media and by officials who recognize how wrong this is, the public could not possibly trust their city officials to put the public interest ahead of their own personal interests. This is as damaging an act of ethical misconduct as I have seen in my years of following local government ethics issues and situations.

This conclusion leads to a more general question:  Should the Florida League of Cities, or any association of officials that receives taxpayer funds, be permitted to lobby on government ethics issues that benefit their members not as representatives of their constituents, but rather as individuals who may be accused of putting their personal interests ahead of their public interest? Again, my answer is No.

Government ethics issues always make officials conflicted, which is why it is so important to limit their role in ethics programs as much as possible. It's bad enough that these conflicted officials draft ethics codes and amendments. This, however, is the way ordinances come into being (although some officials do leave the drafting to citizen task forces, simply rubber stamping their recommendations). It does not, however, have to be the way that state statutes come into being. There is no legal need for local officials to lobby state officials regarding state ethics laws that apply to local officials. Individual officials can testify at public hearings. But they should do no more than this. They should recognize that they are conflicted, and choose not to lobby on these issues, individually or as a group.

It would be nice if this could be done voluntarily, that is, if the League of Cities and other such associations could maturely acknowledge their conflict situation and deal with it responsibly by withdrawing from anything that involves government ethics, including from lobbying. But it is naive to expect this to happen on its own.

Therefore, the Florida legislature should prohibit the League of Cities, and all other associations of government officials, from lobbying, directly or indirectly, on any matter involving their members' conflicts of interest. This is the time to do it, just after the League of Cities has just acted so irresponsibly, showing that it and its members cannot be trusted to lobby in the public interest with respect to conflicts of interest.

It's important to recognize that this is not solely a Florida problem. Associations of officials across the country lobby on conflicts of interest issues. In my state, for example, the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities has been effective in preventing the state ethics program from taking jurisdiction over local officials. The result is that there is no effective local ethics program in the entire state. In whose interest is this?

Something needs to be done about this problem. These associations are probably the biggest obstacle to effective local government ethics programs. Sometimes, as in Georgia, they create and run the state's local government ethics program, and it is inadequate. They need to recognize that, when they get involved in government ethics, they appear to be acting in the personal interest of their members, rather than in the public interest that their members were elected or appointed to protect. They need to recognize that their involvement in government ethics is a misuse of their members' offices and access to public funds. If they are not willing to recognize this, state governments, which have responsibility for their subdivisions, need to push it in their face and tell them to stop lobbying on these issues. Hopefully, the lobbying that went into SB 606 will lead to a serious discussion of this issue. And some action.

Part I - Preventing the Filing of Complaints

Part II - Gifts, Ethics Advice, and Training

Part III - Placing Shackles on Countywide Ethics Programs

Robert Wechsler
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics

---