Misleading Orange County (CA) Ethics Initiative
According to <a href="http://www.ocregister.com/articles/county-638369-campaign-fppc.html" target="”_blank”">an
editorial in the Orange County (CA) <i>Register</i> this week</a>,
Orange County citizens will soon vote on an initiative that would
make their county the second one to turn its campaign finance
program over to the state's Fair Political Practices Commission
(FPPC). But the initiative's wording calls the FPPC "the ethics commission,"
which causes confusion, because many in the county, including a
recent grand jury (see <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/content/orange-county-ca-supervisors-again-ig…; target="”_blank”">my
blog post on this</a>) as well as past grand juries, have called
for a local ethics commission to be formed.<br>
<br>
The editorial points out that the initiative's language is
misleading, because ethics commissions — and there are many good
ones in California — do far more than enforce campaign finance laws.<br>
<br>
In fact, it appears that the FPPC isn't do much enforcing of the campaign finance laws of its first local government, San
Bernardino County. According to the
editorial, San Bernardino County's "two-year contract authorized the
FPPC to bill up to $493,296 for purposes of enforcing San
Bernardino’s campaign finance law. However, 13 months into the
contract, the FPPC had billed the county little more than $9,000."<br>
<br>
In any event, the editorial correctly points out that handing the
job over to the FPPC is likely to prevent the establishment of a
local government ethics program, which the editors support.
Therefore, the editors (as well as other good government advocates)
are put in the position of having to oppose an initiative that would
give the county better campaign finance oversight.<br>
<br>
It is possible that a state agency could do a better job with such a
data-driven aspect of government ethics. But an independent local
program should be first given the chance to run it and, if it feels
it would be more efficient to do it at the state level, then
everyone would support the change.<br>
<br>
Robert Wechsler<br>
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics<br>
<br>
---