Political Deal-Making, Election Time Complaints, and Overinclusive Language in Milton, GA

Is political deal-making a government ethics violation? This is a tough area. Government ethics is about the conflict of personal and public interests. Political interests are generally left out of the equation unless non-political benefits are involved. In politics, you are allowed to put your personal interests first, at least until you win.

According to an article in yesterday's Atlanta Journal-Constitution, a former Milton council member just filed an ethics complaint against a current council member who, he alleges, offered to give an opponent in the upcoming election a board position in exchange for dropping out of the race.

The benefit to the council member is running unopposed. The benefit to the opponent is a board position, which is what the opponent says he really wanted, but couldn't get. Both benefits are political; the pay of a part-time council member is not what candidates seek, although technically there is a financial benefit, as well.

The true financial benefit, which the council member is said to have mentioned to the opponent as inducement, is saving people from a costly campaign. Since there will be an election anyway, I assume the council member was referring to campaign contributors. The offer is said to have been made on September 3, and it was not accepted.

It is certainly an ethics violation to offer a board seat to someone in return for money or goods. It is certainly not an ethics violation to offer a board seat to someone in return for working in a campaign or other political acts, even though those acts benefit the candidate. Offering a board seat in return for dropping out of a race seems much closer to the second of these examples. It is a purely political gift, and the benefit is primarily political. I don't think there is a government ethics violation here.

Ethics Complaints at Election Time
There are two related matters I would like to raise here. One is the timing of the complaint. The complainant waited six weeks to file, and filed in a public manner two weeks before the election. This too was a purely political decision, but purely political decisions are inappropriate to government ethics. The Milton ethics board should immediately dismiss the complaint for this reason, and it should recommend to the council that the ethics code be amended to prevent complaints from being filed within a month before an election. The ethics board needs to send a clear signal that it will not allow the ethics process to be manipulated for political purposes.

Overinclusive Ethics Code Language
Second, the 2008 Milton ethics code, which incorporates Georgia ethical standards, is so overinclusive that practically anything an official or employee does can be brought before the ethics board. Here are a few  provisions:

Any person in City service shall:
Put loyalty to the highest moral principles and to country above loyalty to persons, party, or government department.

Make no private promises of any kind binding upon the duties of office, since an employee has no private word that can be binding on public duty.

Never engage in other conduct which is unbecoming to a member or which constitutes a breach of public trust.

According to these provisions, what the council member did was a violation. It does not represent the highest moral principles, it's a private promise relating to public duty, and it's conduct that many people would find unbecoming. In short, it's politics.

I dealt with the same Georgia language in a blog post this summer. Georgia needs to take a fresh look at this language. It sounds much better on paper than it plays out in practice.

Robert Wechsler
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics

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