D.C.'s Draft Ethics Reform Act Merely Adds Pieces to a Confusing Puzzle
"The appropriate authority" is a vague phrase to base a major ethics
reform proposal on, but that is just what the District of Columbia's <a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/55673311/Comprehensive-Ethics-Reform-Act" target="”_blank”">draft
Comprehensive Ethics Reform Act of 2011</a> does.<br>
<br>
Introduced Tuesday by the council chair, this act is neither
comprehensive nor does it create the accountability that the name of
the new ethics office, the Office of Government Accountability, suggests.<br>
<br>
The District does not have an effective, integrated ethics
program or code, although it has many parts of a program and code.
There are so many parts that, when I reviewed the program for the
council a few years ago, I found seven different, sometimes conflicting
conflict of interest provisions. Confusion is the rule in the
District's ethics program.<br>
<br>
The draft reform act adds two more pieces to the puzzle, and both of
them are toothless, that is, they have no enforcement power. Nor do
they appear independent.<br>
<br>
One of the pieces, the Office of Government Accountability, takes an
unusual inspector general approach to government ethics. The OGA would
be headed by an individual, who would provide advice (only with respect
to whether conduct would violate a law) as well as investigate matters
(nothing is said about complaints) and report to "the appropriate
authority." Nothing is said about which authority might be appropriate
in any particular instance, or what that authority's obligations are.<br>
<br>
The OGA director would be selected by the mayor, with consent by the
council, from a list put together by the <a href="http://www.dcboee.us/" target="”_blank”">District of Columbia Board of Elections and Ethics</a>, whose members are selected by the
mayor, with consent by the council. Despite its name, this board
appears to have little or nothing to do with government ethics, outside of campaign finance.<br>
<br>
And yet, under the draft act, the OGA director's findings can be
appealed to this board, and the board's decision can be appealed to a
court. These appeals would be of a report that contains nothing but
findings and recommendations (like appealing a grand jury report). It could be years before the "appropriate
authority" gets to consider the report and actually make a decision.
This doesn't sound like accountability to me.<br>
<br>
The other piece is the five-person
Ethics Advisory Committee, which will be "led" by the OGA director, but
"chaired" by the mayor or his designee. One member is the council
chair, two members are selected by the mayor, and one member is
selected by the council. The committee's job is to make recommendations
regarding changes to the city's ethics laws.<br>
<br>
Usually this job is done by a city's ethics commission or, in cases
where serious reform appears to be necessary, by a special advisory
board. To have a separate sitting committee that has no obligation to do anything at all seems wasteful. And since
the mayor and the council can recommend changes any time they want,
their presence and effective control of this particular committee make
it seem superfluous.<br>
<br>
The District's government needs to take a deep breath and let go. The
only way it will have a comprehensive, effective ethics program is not
by adding pieces to the puzzle of District ethics, but by competely
remaking the program and the ethics laws so that they aren't a puzzle
at all. And the only way the ethics program will be effective is if it
appears to the public, and actually is, independent of the city's
officials, and has teeth.<br>
<br>
Piecemeal changes under the control of elected officials, and with lots
of room for maneuver through a series of toothless agencies, will do
little to change the city's ethics environment or how it appears to the
public.<br>
<br>
Robert Wechsler<br>
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics<br>
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