Should an Ethics Commission Member Be Affiliated with a Firm That Represents Clients Before It?

<a href="http://www.ajc.com/business/connections-count-at-law-592015.html&quot; target="”_blank”">Last
Saturday's
Atlanta <i>Journal-Constitution</i> ran a long article</a>, "Connections Count
at Law Firm," on the Washington/Atlanta-based law firm <a href="http://www.mckennalong.com/&quot; target="”_blank”">McKenna Long & Aldridge</a>.
This firm was known to me primarily as the firm behind the <a href="http://www.paytoplaylawblog.com/&quot; target="”_blank”">Pay to Pay Law Blog</a>, a
good, although too infrequent blog that looks at government ethics
and campaign finance from the compliance side, that is, from the point
of view of the companies that have to comply with the rules.<br>
<br>
McKenna Long is also, according to the article, the tenth-largest
lobbying firm in the country, it represents numerous government
officials in ethics and election law matters, and it has many former
and even current officials on staff, some of whom aren't even lawyers.<br>
<br>
The most interesting of its "senior strategic advisors" is <a href="http://oce.house.gov/david-skaggs.html&quot; target="”_blank”">David Skaggs</a>, a
former congressman from Colorado and, more important, chairman of the
board of the <a href="http://oce.house.gov/index.html&quot; target="”_blank”">Office of
Congressional Ethics</a>, the surprisingly aggressive new part of the
House ethics process. Other senior strategic advisors include Howard
Dean and Zell Miller.<br>
<br>

One of the firm's partners is quoted in the article as saying that ethics is a growth
industry for the firm. “You see ethics complaints and ethical
compliance issues. There’s a lot of gotcha politics going on.” No
wonder the practice of ethics and campaign finance law is known as
"political law." It's the politics of complaints and the connections
that count, at least in getting the work.<br>
<br>
But is it right to have so close a connection to the Office of
Congressional Ethics (OCE)? And is right for the OCE chair to be
affiliated with a large lobbying firm, a firm whose interest in
protecting lobbyists
goes beyond the job of representing clients? And is it right for the
OCE chair to be affiliated with a firm that might be representing
clients in
the very matters the OCE is investigating, and is at the forefront of
trying to affect the rules by which the congressional ethics process
operates?<br>
<br>
Let me get more specific. According to <a href="http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/nation/ethics-commission-investigatin…; target="”_blank”">an
article
in the Washington <i>Examiner</i> this June</a>, McKenna Long
represented congressman Nathan Deal in an OCE ethics investigation
(see <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/content/ec-reports-legislator-who-resigned-hi…; target="”_blank”">my
blog
post</a> on this). The congressman resigned in order to prevent
the OCE's report from going out, but the OCE went public with the
report anyway.<br>
<br>
Many ethics codes prohibit a board member or his firm from being
involved in matters before the board. This should definitely be true of
an ethics body. Of course, the member can recuse himself with respect
to a particular investigation, but it
certainly would be better for an ethics board member not to be
affiliated with
a firm that appears before it or whose clients appear before it.<br>
<br>
I don't think the chair of a local government ethics commission should
be affiliated with a firm that represents clients before ethics
commissions, lobbies, and has its own PAC. Even if there is no direct conflict,
it makes it look like the deck is stacked in favor of the officials and
those who lobby before them or contribute to them. It would be even
more problematic were the
chair a former council member himself.<br>
<br>
For those interested in the practice of political law, Chambers
Partners, a British firm, has <a href="http://www.chambersandpartners.com/UK/Editorial/37063&quot; target="”_blank”">a list of
the top political law firms in the U.S.</a>, ranking them by tier (the
list calls them "bands"). McKenna Long is listed as in the third band.
There are
a lot of connections out there.<br>
<br>
Robert Wechsler<br>
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics<br>
<br>
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