Everyone knows it’s not right for government officials to favor their friends, but because friendships are so difficult to define, they don’t appear in ethics codes. Relatives can be defined, domestic partners can be defined, business associates can be defined, but not boyfriends or pals or old buddies. This is one of the limitations of dealing with ethics in the form of a law.
But the Massachusetts Ethics Commission, which deals with local government as well as state government officials, has found a way to deal with favoritism given to friends. According to its April 30 press release, a former county retirement board member was found to have violated the state conflict of interest law by awarding a building renovation contract to a friend and failing to disclose the friendship, and also by voting to hire his friend to manage the facility and again failing to disclose the friendship.
Confidentiality is a sticky issue in ethics investigations. It appears to be the norm, but many people do not seem to understand why it exists, or what duties it creates.
An interesting confidentiality issue arose recently in Beaufort, South Carolina, according to an article in today’s Beaufort Gazette. A former mayoral candidate filed a complaint against the current mayor with the state Ethics Commission. The city attorney found out about the complaint and told the city council, which put out a press release about the complaint.
What’s been happening recently in Lincoln, Nebraska, concerning city officials having contracts with the city, provides food for thought on a few basic conflicts of interest issues.
One issue is whether city officials and employees should be allowed to have contracts with the city. Or are full and open bidding provisions enough? Or full disclosure?
Another issue is whether a city council is the right body to decide this question.
Yet another issue is the inclusiveness of conflicts language.
One nearly untouchable aspect of government ethics is the role of parties.
This is less a problem in municipalities than at other levels of government, because most municipalities in the U.S. are nonpartisan, although parties still play a role. But many municipalities and, in some states, particularly in the Northeast, all municipalities are still partisan. And most counties are partisan, as well.
In many cases, partisanship and local government are hard to separate. That is, much that is done by local government officials is done as a member of a party rather than as an independent representative of the public.
But this is the prerogative of parties in our system, and there is little that ethics laws can do about this sort of conflict of interest. The reasoning behind this is that partisan competition is good for our government. But what happens when parties collude? How can that be good for the public interest?
In an upcoming book, The Rule of Law and Development, Michael Trebilcock and Ron Daniels divide developing countries into three groups (according to an article in last week’s Economist):
1. Those where politicians, lawyers, and the public all support legal reform (e.g., Central Europe after the end of communism);
2. Those where politicians support legal reform, but lawyers and the police do not (e.g., Chile); and
3. Those where lawyers support legal reform, but politicians do not (e.g., Pakistan)
Legal reform succeeds only in the first of these three groups.
With respect to ethics reform, the same is true in the United States. It is not enough for politicians or lawyers alone to support ethics reform.
From: http://www.jacksonville.com/tu
What a nice thing to wake up to: reading in the newspaper that at least some American institutions are using words like 'transparency' and 'accountability' as if they really meant it.
In an article in today's New York Times, we learn that foundations are now publicizing their failures as well as their successes. A consultant to foundations is quoted as saying, 'there's an increasing recognition among foundation leaders that not to be public about failures is essentially indefensible. If something didn't work, it is incumbent upon you to make sure others don't make the same mistake.'
a) Prevent and detect criminal conduct and
b) Promote an ethical culture
I've been on a sort of work-leave the last two weeks. My town, North Haven, Connecticut (pop. 24,000), has been a mess for a long time, but few people have cared enough to pay attention, and those who criticize the administration are personally attacked and delegitimized. It was my town's mess, and my inability to do anything locally, that led me to do work for Common Cause Connecticut, and then devote myself full-time to municipal ethics by coming to work for City Ethics.
Sadly, it takes a big scandal to grab people's attention, as much as we like to think there are other ways. Well, one happened a couple of weeks ago: the director of finance, who acted as town manager, another department head who was the chair of the Republican Town Committee, and an assistant department head, who is married to the party town committee chair, were arrested on counts of embezzlement, larceny, forgery, conspiracy, and hindering prosecution.
