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District Attorney Insists, "My Staff Has Been Following My [Ethics] Rules"
Wednesday, June 29th, 2011
Robert Wechsler
Last
week, I wrote about a Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision
invalidating a Montgomery County's ethics code to the extent it applied to the
employees of independent agencies, such as the district attorney's
office.
According to an article in yesterday's Pokiomen Valley Patch, the district attorney, who brought the suit, spoke publicly about the decision. She said, “[The county commissioners'] actions were nothing more than an interference on the independence of an elected official. ... I have extensive ethical guidelines. My staff has been following my rules all along, not the [county] commissioners'.”
For one thing, those extensive ethical guidelines are not available on the DA's website, so the public cannot know whether they even cover the same areas as the county ethics code.
Second, it is disconcerting in a discussion of an area that is intended to separate the public and the private to hear an elected officials talk about "my rules" or ethics rules as "interference on the independence of an elected official."
No ethics rules are any individual's rules, and no individual should hide them from the public. And yes, ethics rules are intended to interfere with the independence of elected officials, because elected officials have obligations to the public that limit their independence.
Third, even though an independent agency may not be required by law to embrace a city or county's ethics code, it has not only the option to do so, but an obligation to seriously consider accepting the entire code or, if it already has a code, any provisions that would improve its code. To treat an ethics code simply as interference and to act as if one's own code is the be-all and end-all is to disparage the public's other representatives and turn your back on policies that might improve public trust in your agency.
What the DA has done is exactly what she accuses the county commissioners of doing: politicizing ethics. She talks only of power, independence, and rights, and says nothing about obligations, trust, or dealing responsibly with conflicts of interest. She talks only of her office and says nothing of the public interest.
Robert Wechsler
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics
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According to an article in yesterday's Pokiomen Valley Patch, the district attorney, who brought the suit, spoke publicly about the decision. She said, “[The county commissioners'] actions were nothing more than an interference on the independence of an elected official. ... I have extensive ethical guidelines. My staff has been following my rules all along, not the [county] commissioners'.”
For one thing, those extensive ethical guidelines are not available on the DA's website, so the public cannot know whether they even cover the same areas as the county ethics code.
Second, it is disconcerting in a discussion of an area that is intended to separate the public and the private to hear an elected officials talk about "my rules" or ethics rules as "interference on the independence of an elected official."
No ethics rules are any individual's rules, and no individual should hide them from the public. And yes, ethics rules are intended to interfere with the independence of elected officials, because elected officials have obligations to the public that limit their independence.
Third, even though an independent agency may not be required by law to embrace a city or county's ethics code, it has not only the option to do so, but an obligation to seriously consider accepting the entire code or, if it already has a code, any provisions that would improve its code. To treat an ethics code simply as interference and to act as if one's own code is the be-all and end-all is to disparage the public's other representatives and turn your back on policies that might improve public trust in your agency.
What the DA has done is exactly what she accuses the county commissioners of doing: politicizing ethics. She talks only of power, independence, and rights, and says nothing about obligations, trust, or dealing responsibly with conflicts of interest. She talks only of her office and says nothing of the public interest.
Robert Wechsler
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics
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