A Look at 2013
2013 was not a particularly good year for government ethics. This
blog started out by noting how little Tennessee's model code had
done for its municipalities' ethics programs. Early-year hopes for
improvement of New Jersey's terrible state local government ethics
program were dashed by the program's October request to renew its
rules without any changes whatsoever.<br>
<br>
<b>Ethics Reform</b><br>
There was not much in the way of ethics reform in 2013. <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/content/proposed-ethics-reforms-san-antonio&q…; target="”_blank”">San Antonio
proposed some good changes to its ethics program</a>, such as taking it
out of the hands of the city attorney, but it appears that nothing
has been done yet. Phoenix's task force filed a disappointing
report, and <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/content/current-ethics-reform-ii-phoenix" target="”_blank”">the mayor and council have focused on "toughness"</a> rather
than the creation of an effective government ethics program. Some
excellent reform recommendations from Tallahassee's ethics task
force were <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/content/top-tallahassee-officials-oppose-ethi…; target="”_blank”">opposed
by high-level officials</a>. The <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/content/dc-ethics-boards-flawed-recommendatio…; target="”_blank”">D.C.
ethics board's mixed recommendations for reform</a>, and some <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/content/new-dc-ethics-reform-bill" target="”_blank”">excellent
reform proposals by a council member,</a> did not become law this
year. The Prince George's County, MD <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/content/current-ethics-reform-iii-prince-geor…; target="”_blank”">county
executive's ethics reform promises</a> do not appear to have given
the famous corrupt county much of an ethics program yet. <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/content/current-ethics-reform-iii-prince-geor…; target="”_blank”">The
plan of Kenosha and Racine, WI</a> to have their ethics boards
deal with proceedings from the other city is getting closer to
becoming reality.<br>
<br>
Meanwhile, <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/content/current-ethics-reform-i-orange-county…; target="”_blank”">in Orange County, CA, high-level officials rejected an ethics program</a>
even after a grand jury set out forty years of corruption and recommended a comprehensive program. Instead, county
officials focused solely on enforcement via other
alternatives.<br>
<br>
<a href="http://www.cityethics.org/content/new-aspa-code-ethics" target="”_blank”">Ethics
reform was instituted by the American Society for Public Administration</a>
in 2013, but the results were mixed. The best changes were a
requirement to report ethical misconduct, a requirement to resist
pressures to compromise ethical principles, and encouragement to
public administrators to adopt ethics codes for their governments
(but why not "ethics programs"?).<br>
<br>
<b>Judicial Decisions</b><br>
As usual, there were not a lot of important judicial decisions
relating to government ethics. But the most important one was pretty
important. On remand, the Nevada Supreme Court followed some
judicial comments made during the oral argument of the long-running <i>Carrigan</i> case,
deciding to effectively treat <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/content/carrigan-decision-seeking-ethics-advi…; target="”_blank”">the
opportunity to seek ethics advice as the only, or at least most
important, process due</a> a local official faced with a possible
conflict situation.<br>
<br>
This somewhat radical view opens up all sorts of
possibilities for a government ethics program. For one thing, it
allows an ethics program to plug up loopholes via a catchall provision that
allows the ethics officer or commission to
define the provision's coverage rather than have the provision limited to the limited letter of the
law. For example, a conflict provision can be made applicable to a relationship with a
close friend via an open-ended relationship list, even though this
relationship cannot be adequately defined in a relationship list (in the alternative, the ethics officer or commission can, throught ethics advice, define a vague term such as "close friend."<br>
<br>
The decision also made it clear that an official cannot depend on
the ethics advice of a city attorney if the official can seek such
advice from an ethics officer or commission.<br>
<br>
<b>Regulations, Publications, Indictments, and Threats</b><br>
<a href="http://www.cityethics.org/content/philadelphia-ethics-boards-proposed-g…; target="”_blank”">One
of my longest blog posts of the year</a> was about the
Philadelphia ethics board's proposed gift regulation. This proposal
raised a number of important issues involving gift bans. Local good
government groups and newspaper editors were as opposed to the
regulation as I was, but they focused on a small number of the
issues.<br>
<br>
As for publications, I do not know of any new book on state or local
government ethics other than the second edition of my book <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/ethics%20book" target="”_blank”"><i>Local Government
Ethics Programs</i></a> and the new <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/publications/LGEP-Nutshell" target="”_blank”"><i>Nutshell</i>
version</a>. The book was cited in several reports from ethics
commissions, task forces, grand juries, auditors, and independent ethics
advisers.<br>
<br>
Indictments against local officials across the country showed the
weaknesses of local government ethics programs. And yet much reform
talk continued to involve the criminalization of government ethics,
making government ethics more about enforcement than prevention (and
doing much of this through sting operations), and placing the power
in the hands of district attorneys rather than ethics commissions
and their staff.<br>
<br>
It is never a surprise when an ethics program is threatened by
politicians. This year, the threats included a Florida legislative
committee's <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/content/florida-legislative-committee-calls-s…; target="”_blank”">call
for the suspension of Palm Beach County's ethics program</a> and <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/content/many-reasons-why-city-or-county-attor…; target="”_blank”">the
insistence by Honolulu's corporation counsel on providing ethics
advice</a> and its other attempts to interfere with the ethics
program's independence and jurisdiction over ethics.<br>
<br>
<b>Modern Technology</b><br>
Most ethics commission websites continue to provide little or no
information about their programs, including no training materials,
no advisory opinions, no disclosures, no information about
enforcement proceedings or how to file complaints or provide tips,
not even meeting minutes. It is inexcusable that ethics programs
show so little interest in transparency (which is, after all, one of
the three areas of government ethics) and make so little use of the
internet. And most of the more sophisticated programs still have
websites designed from the program's perspective rather than with
respect to viewers' needs.<br>
<br>
However, the first government ethics app appeared, where else but in
California. The app involves the disclosure of gifts. Perhaps some
day soon, the public will also be able to follow, in real time, the
appointment schedules of high-level officials and lobbyists, as well
as transactional and applicant disclosures.<br>
<br>
<b>New Terms</b><br>
This year, the <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/content/new-local-government-ethics-term" target="”_blank”">St.
Louis <i>Post-Dispatch</i> coined a new government ethics term</a>,
dyscronia, which I have defined as "characterized
by difficulty with learning to accurately comprehend conflict of
interest
situations and to deal with them responsibly, despite normal
ethics." I proposed an alternate term, "dysaffinia,"
based on the Latin word
"affinitas," which means a relationship, affinity, or union. I
defined this new term as "the inability to see how damaging one's
relationships, and alternate
hats, can be to the public's trust in those who govern its
community." I also coined the term "dysdysaffinia," defining it as
"the inability to
recognize and deal with the problems that arise from dysaffinia."
According to a Google search, none of these terms has been picked up by anyone.<br>
<br>
<b>2014</b><br>
Among my quixotic wishes for 2014 are these three:<blockquote>
The consideration by high-level local officials of (1) best
practices, (2) the fact that their participation in a conflicts of
interest program involves, and appears to the public, as a serious
conflict of interest, and (3) the fact that an independent ethics
program is actually in their self-interest<br>
<br>
A general recognition of the importance of independent ethics advice<br>
<br>
A national discussion about local government ethics that includes
practitioners, academics, and municipal attorneys</blockquote>
Robert Wechsler<br>
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics<br>
<br>
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