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A New Government Ethics Report from a New Florida Organization
Monday, June 11th, 2012
Robert Wechsler
In recent years, Florida's elected officials have shown a great deal
of leadership in the field of unethical and criminal misconduct. The
state has a weak state ethics commission, which has jurisdiction
over local officials, and until recently only one good local
government ethics program, in Miami/Dade County (Jacksonville and
Palm Beach County joined this list with ethics reform last year).
The major voices in government ethics in Florida have, sadly, been
grand juries.
The need for a good government group focused on government ethics has recently been filled by Integrity Florida, a nonpartisan nonprofit headed by Dan Krassner, a former public relations professional and campaign adviser, who has been Chief Strategy and Communications Officer for the Florida Chamber of Commerce and Vice President of Communications at Florida TaxWatch.
Integrity Florida's research director, Ben Wilcox, is a former head of Common Cause Florida. Another founder, Martin Rogol, was the head of the Palm Beach County Ethics Initiative, which was so instrumental in that county's reform effort. And the board also includes a former editorial page editor, a former mayor, and a Tea Party leader.
Integrity Florida recently published an undated report, which makes useful recommendations for ethics reform at the state level. Phil Claypool, former director of the state ethics commission, contributed to the report. Here is another report that, while everything in it is of value, fails to create a vision of the goal: an independent, comprehensive government ethics program. Its recommendations are piecemeal reforms focused on ending corruption rather than on creating a healthy ethics environment through training, advice, and ongoing discussion.
Featured Recommendations
The report's featured recommendations are:
The third and fourth recommendations are unusual, but desirable. Everyone who is involved with government, whether it be through contracts, permits, grants, or consulting, should be trained in government ethics, encouraged to seek advice about conflict situations, required to disclose relationships, gifts, and the like, and subject to ethics enforcement. If everyone participates in an ethics program, it is less likely that misconduct will occur.
Similarly, disclosing significant financial transactions keeps top officials involved in the ethics program on a regular basis, and provides useful information to the ethics commission, the public, and officials' colleagues, so that it is more likely that top officials will handle their conflicts responsibly.
Additional Recommendations
Integrity Florida made several other recommendations in its report:
A "clear and convincing" standard of proof is very difficult for an ethics commission, with its limited resources. As Integrity Florida says, this is often treated as a criminal "beyond a reasonable doubt" standard, even though the penalties are small and the officials' obligations to the public are far higher than an ordinary criminal defendant's.
Ethics commissions should lead the way with respect to transparency, which is, after all, a principal area of government ethics. Ethics training should be required (although 20 hours seems a lot). Uncollected fines undermine the public's trust in officials and the ethics program. And officials should know there is a chance their disclosure form will be audited.
Why Not an Independent, Comprehensive Ethics Program?
Although this is an excellent report as far as it goes, and it's great to have Integrity Florida focusing on government ethics issues, I hope it will consider taking a different approach to government ethics. I hope it will not merely make recommendations, but rather explain what an independent, comprehensive ethics program looks like and what changes are needed to get there (in order of priority, and with consideration of which provisions are interdependent, such as EC initiative and a hotline). Then it should try to get officials to explain why they reject each aspect of an ethics program, for example, why they refuse to allow the ethics commission to be independent from those over whom they have jurisdiction, even though this means conflicts of interest at the heart of a conflict of interest program.
Integrity Florida suggests that, to prevent the ethics commission from using the power to initiate complaints in order to engage in politicized "witch hunts," the EC could be required to have a supermajority in favor of investigation, enabling one party to block the investigation. In fact, the best way to prevent partisan "witch hunts" is not to have a bipartisan EC appointed by politicians, but rather a nonpartisan EC appointed by good government and other civic organizations. No EC member should be seen by the public as representing either major party, and certainly not any official.
Crime and Integrity Are Not Integral to Government Ethics
Another thing I would like to see from Integrity Florida is less emphasis on criminal misconduct when it is making recommendations regarding ethical misconduct. The fact that Florida has had so many of its state and local officials convicted of crimes certainly captures attention, but it also makes people feel it's hopeless to improve a government ethics program that has nothing to do with criminal misconduct. How, people feel, will more training and disclosure prevent criminal misconduct?
If it wants to talk about crime, Integrity Florida should connect all the dots, explaining (1) how important it is to reducing public crime to improve the state's ethics environment and (2) that this cannot be done by the criminal justice system, because it lacks both training and advice. Advice is the big thing missing from this report, and yet it is the most important part of a government ethics program. It is also hard to draw a clear line between ethics advice and crime.
Like the emphasis on criminal corruption, the use of the word "Integrity" is problematic. It implies that the principal issue is character. While character is a serious problem, it is not part of the solution. It is not even part of a government ethics program. Government ethics cannot deal with character or motives. It can only deal with conduct. It can provide guidance that will enable the greatest possible number of officials to handle their conflicts responsibly, and to report the irresponsible handling of conflicts by their colleagues. It can help increase the discussion of conflict situations formally and informally. It can enforce ethics laws and undermine the confidence that many officials have that they can get away with ethics violations. But it can do nothing to change the character of officials. Nor is this necessary.
Robert Wechsler
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics
203-859-1959
The need for a good government group focused on government ethics has recently been filled by Integrity Florida, a nonpartisan nonprofit headed by Dan Krassner, a former public relations professional and campaign adviser, who has been Chief Strategy and Communications Officer for the Florida Chamber of Commerce and Vice President of Communications at Florida TaxWatch.
Integrity Florida's research director, Ben Wilcox, is a former head of Common Cause Florida. Another founder, Martin Rogol, was the head of the Palm Beach County Ethics Initiative, which was so instrumental in that county's reform effort. And the board also includes a former editorial page editor, a former mayor, and a Tea Party leader.
Integrity Florida recently published an undated report, which makes useful recommendations for ethics reform at the state level. Phil Claypool, former director of the state ethics commission, contributed to the report. Here is another report that, while everything in it is of value, fails to create a vision of the goal: an independent, comprehensive government ethics program. Its recommendations are piecemeal reforms focused on ending corruption rather than on creating a healthy ethics environment through training, advice, and ongoing discussion.
Featured Recommendations
The report's featured recommendations are:
-
1. Allow the state ethics commission to self-initiate
investigations.
2. Establish a hotline.
3. Apply the ethics code to all who touch public money, including vendors.
4. Require top officials, including local elected officials, to disclose their major stock, property, and business transactions.
5. Require financial disclosure forms to be made available online in a searchable, downloadable format.
The third and fourth recommendations are unusual, but desirable. Everyone who is involved with government, whether it be through contracts, permits, grants, or consulting, should be trained in government ethics, encouraged to seek advice about conflict situations, required to disclose relationships, gifts, and the like, and subject to ethics enforcement. If everyone participates in an ethics program, it is less likely that misconduct will occur.
Similarly, disclosing significant financial transactions keeps top officials involved in the ethics program on a regular basis, and provides useful information to the ethics commission, the public, and officials' colleagues, so that it is more likely that top officials will handle their conflicts responsibly.
Additional Recommendations
Integrity Florida made several other recommendations in its report:
-
1. Raise the standard for awarding attorney fees against
complainants.
2. Change the standard of proof from "clear and convincing evidence" to a "preponderance of the evidence."
3. Require 20 hours of ethics training for elected officials, and less training for lower-level officials, government vendors, and lobbyists.
4. Increase the top ethics penalty from $10,000 to $25,000.
5. Improve the collections process for ethics fines.
6. Post all core ethics commission documents into an online, searchable database.
7. Audit a random sample of financial disclosure forms.
A "clear and convincing" standard of proof is very difficult for an ethics commission, with its limited resources. As Integrity Florida says, this is often treated as a criminal "beyond a reasonable doubt" standard, even though the penalties are small and the officials' obligations to the public are far higher than an ordinary criminal defendant's.
Ethics commissions should lead the way with respect to transparency, which is, after all, a principal area of government ethics. Ethics training should be required (although 20 hours seems a lot). Uncollected fines undermine the public's trust in officials and the ethics program. And officials should know there is a chance their disclosure form will be audited.
Why Not an Independent, Comprehensive Ethics Program?
Although this is an excellent report as far as it goes, and it's great to have Integrity Florida focusing on government ethics issues, I hope it will consider taking a different approach to government ethics. I hope it will not merely make recommendations, but rather explain what an independent, comprehensive ethics program looks like and what changes are needed to get there (in order of priority, and with consideration of which provisions are interdependent, such as EC initiative and a hotline). Then it should try to get officials to explain why they reject each aspect of an ethics program, for example, why they refuse to allow the ethics commission to be independent from those over whom they have jurisdiction, even though this means conflicts of interest at the heart of a conflict of interest program.
Integrity Florida suggests that, to prevent the ethics commission from using the power to initiate complaints in order to engage in politicized "witch hunts," the EC could be required to have a supermajority in favor of investigation, enabling one party to block the investigation. In fact, the best way to prevent partisan "witch hunts" is not to have a bipartisan EC appointed by politicians, but rather a nonpartisan EC appointed by good government and other civic organizations. No EC member should be seen by the public as representing either major party, and certainly not any official.
Crime and Integrity Are Not Integral to Government Ethics
Another thing I would like to see from Integrity Florida is less emphasis on criminal misconduct when it is making recommendations regarding ethical misconduct. The fact that Florida has had so many of its state and local officials convicted of crimes certainly captures attention, but it also makes people feel it's hopeless to improve a government ethics program that has nothing to do with criminal misconduct. How, people feel, will more training and disclosure prevent criminal misconduct?
If it wants to talk about crime, Integrity Florida should connect all the dots, explaining (1) how important it is to reducing public crime to improve the state's ethics environment and (2) that this cannot be done by the criminal justice system, because it lacks both training and advice. Advice is the big thing missing from this report, and yet it is the most important part of a government ethics program. It is also hard to draw a clear line between ethics advice and crime.
Like the emphasis on criminal corruption, the use of the word "Integrity" is problematic. It implies that the principal issue is character. While character is a serious problem, it is not part of the solution. It is not even part of a government ethics program. Government ethics cannot deal with character or motives. It can only deal with conduct. It can provide guidance that will enable the greatest possible number of officials to handle their conflicts responsibly, and to report the irresponsible handling of conflicts by their colleagues. It can help increase the discussion of conflict situations formally and informally. It can enforce ethics laws and undermine the confidence that many officials have that they can get away with ethics violations. But it can do nothing to change the character of officials. Nor is this necessary.
Robert Wechsler
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics
203-859-1959
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