Another Obligation That Comes With Seeking or Holding Public Office

Anonymous

Sat, 03/05/2011 - 03:02

Campaign Finance

This is a very serious blog post, but I want to start it with a game.
Here are the headlines of stories that are said to be "related" to <a href="http://www.wltx.com/news/article/125997/2/UPDATE-Politicians-Pay-Fines-…; target="”_blank”">an
article on the WLTX website yesterday</a> relating to local government
ethics in South Carolina: 
 
<ul class="">
<li class="">Naked Woman Creates
Ruckus on Delta Flight 
</li>
<li class="">Latest Forecast
Update on Storm Potential 
</li>
<li class="">Deputies: Thieves
Took 4,560 Gallons of Gas</li>
<li class="">10-year-old Boy
Stabbed in Back with Steak Knife at School 
</li>
</ul>
What could the article be about?

Someone must not be wearing any
clothes (a small-town emperor perhaps?), but they're saying they were
stabbed in the back by thieves, and a big storm is on the way? 
 
What the article is about is the state ethics commission trying to
collect late filing fees, mostly from local government officials. <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/content/collecting-ethics-commission-fines&qu…; target="”_blank”">I
wrote about this topic in October 2009</a>, when the state EC did the
very same thing: publish a list of officials who had not paid
their fees, some of which were huge (they add up, and there is no
limit). 
 
And yet the local officials are still crowing that they didn't know,
that they filed the forms (in the wrong place), that
the fees are too high, that it's all outrageous. Within two weeks of
getting lots of coverage of the fact that officials owed $6 million in
fees, all of six (out of over a hundred; I stopped counting) officials,
lobbyists, candidates, and committees paid their fees, some of them at a very
steeply discounted amount (e.g., $1,000 instead of $215,600). 
 
The state EC has staff that spends a great deal of time trying to
collect these fees, but if they are not paid and they cannot garnish
wages or the like, there is nothing they can do. At a time when every
single official, candidate, and party in the country is crying for
budget cuts, there is only one reason in the world that they would not
ensure a budget cut by paying their late fees quickly and voluntarily,
so that EC staff could be cut. That reason is that they put their own
welfare ahead of the welfare of every single other person who pays taxes and gets government
services. 
 
The EC staff should stop trying to collect fees, and should instead
hold required ethics training where the officials, lobbyists,
candidates, and committee chairs are told about our political system and
their role in it, and the responsibilities that come with that role. If
they want power and the freedom to speak their minds, they have to
recognize that these things come with obligations, including the
obligation to file disclosure and campaign forms when they are due, so
that their constituents can know what conflicts of interest they might
have. 
 
If they do not file on time, citizens should be told that the truth: that their officials are (or were) hiding their conflicts and,
possibly, their ethics violations. The publicity should not be about fees, it should be about disclosure. 
 
Getting back to the "related stories," it has become clear why they are
related. It is not the politicians who are being robbed and stabbed in
the back; it's the public. But the politicians are
ten-year-olds, blaming funny Uncle Bob for the pie that's gone from
the window sill. There they stand, naked, putting their personal
interest at the expense of the public interest. If they had not already
lowered people's expectations so much, there would be a storm. What
kind of storm? Here's an excerpt from one of the comments to <a href="http://www.wltx.com/news/article/123213/2/Ethics-Commission-Says-Politi…; target="”_blank”">the
February 17 article</a> on the publication of the late filers list:<ul>

Look at the names on that list. You'll see a litany of grubbing,
perennial public office seekers. Many of them have supported increasing
taxes to fill public coffers. But when it's time for THEM to throw
their lot in the kitty, it's all lies and obfuscation. 
 
I also see a whole host of other scum decorating that list. Lobbyists,
convicted felons, and morally bankrupt political parties. 
 
When you wonder how our country came to the point we're at now, look at
this list and know that this is the type of scum that runs for
political office.</ul>

This is not a storm we want. Our officials, lobbyists, candidates, and committees owe it to us to do what they can to prevent it from happening. 
 
Robert Wechsler 
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics 
 
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