Following the Spirit of an Intra-Governmental Revolving Door Law in Louisiana
Here's an interesting conflict situation from Louisiana that
involves a good intra-governmental revolving door provision and unforeseen circumstances. According to
<a href="http://www.theneworleansadvocate.com/news/8983032-171/state-ethics-staf…; target="”_blank”">an
article today in the <i>Advocate</a>,</i>
the New Orleans Sewerage & Water Board made the wise decision to
ask the state ethics board, which has jurisdiction over local
officials, whether it could hire the city's deputy mayor as its
executive director.<br>
<br>
What is interesting here is that, over the past three years,
the deputy mayor has attended nearly
every water board meeting and, sitting in for the mayor, has chaired
them. Thus, although not a member himself, he had more power than
any member.<br>
<br>
The state intra-governmental revolving door provision is as follows:<blockquote>
§42-1121(A)(2) No former member of a
board or commission shall, for a period of two years following the
termination of his public service on such board or commission,
contract with, be employed in any capacity by, or be appointed to
any position by that board or commission.</blockquote>
A strict interpretation of this law would argue that the deputy mayor was never a
"member" of the water board. But even a strict interpretation
would have to deal with the reference to "his public service on
such board." No one can deny that he served on the board, even
though not himself a member. But even without the reference to
"public service," the spirit of the law is clear: a board
member should not be permitted to use his office and his
relationships with fellow board members to get himself a personal
benefit, such as a job working for the board. Participation on a
government board is a service, not a stepping stone to a job, not
a way of getting preferential treatment. The legal status of a
person participating on the board is irrelevant.<br>
<br>
Therefore, it is good that the
ethics board's staff, in a draft opinion (which I haven't read,
but which is referenced in the article), has said that the deputy
mayor cannot accept the executive director position for two years.<br>
<br>
To see the kind of preferential
treatment that can be involved in such a transaction, one can look
at the "work-around" that the mayor's office tried to put together
to get around the revolving door provision. According to <a href="http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2014/02/the_new_orleans_sewerage…; target="”_blank”">an article in the New Orleans
<i>Times-Picayune,</i></a> the work-around involved the mayor and the
water board entering into "a cooperative endeavor agreement" that
would keep the deputy mayor as a City Hall employee while he
served as the water board's executive director. The difference
here would be that the preferential treatment would be coming from
the mayor's office rather than the water board, so it would be
legal. But this preferential treatment would be worse, because it
is essentially fraudulent. In fact, according to state law, it
could be considered public contract fraud:<blockquote>
§14-140(A). Public
contract fraud is committed:<br>
<br>
(1) When any public officer
or public employee shall use his power or position as such officer
or employee to secure any expenditure of public funds to
himself...</blockquote>
I hope the state ethics board
accepts its staff's draft advisory opinion. The water board might
not get the best person for the job, but the ethics board will be
sending the right message to boards and commissions, not to
mention elected officials and their staff, across the state.<br>
<br>
For more about this sort of revolving door law, see <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/node/720" target="”_blank”">a City Ethics blog post from five years
ago.</a><br>
<br>
Robert Wechsler<br>
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics<br>
<br>
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