The Need for a Revolving Door Provision, and More, in Hartford

According to an article in Tuesday's Hartford Advocate, a complaint has been filed with Hartford's ethics commission by a council member against the former corporation counsel on the grounds that he had taken a job with a law firm that had received hundreds of thousands of dollars in contracts overseen by the corporation counsel.

Normally, the problem is that a local government attorney goes to a law firm that represents people in their dealings with the local government. That creates the legal ethics problem of being on both sides of a case.

This situation does not create a legal ethics problem, but a government ethics problem. It creates the appearance that there was a deal between the corporation counsel and the law firm that, if the corporation counsel helps it get contracts with the city, the firm will take him on when he decides to leave government service.

There is also the fact that getting a corporation counsel fresh out of office gives the firm a competitive advantage in contracts for the near future, both because of the corporation counsel's connections and his experience in specific cases the firm is handling or will handle in the near future. On the other hand, having the former corporation counsel doing billable work for the city could save the city money, since he won't have to get up to speed on some of the cases he is involved with.

Unfortunately, the Hartford ethics code's revolving door provisions cover only representation, not jobs. Here is the relevant City Ethics Model Code provision:

§100.11(d). Employment. An official or employee may not accept employment (a) with a party to a contract with the city, within two years after the contract was signed, when he or she participated personally and substantially in the preparation, negotiation, or award of the contract, and the contract obliged the city to pay an aggregate of at least $25,000; (b) with an individual or entity who has, within the previous two years, benefited directly from any decision made by, or based on advice or information supplied by, the official or employee or by a subordinate.

This provision would have provided the corporation counsel with the guidance he needed in order to choose a job that would not undermine trust in government.

It appears that the former corporation counsel was not the only one taking a job with a firm that benefited from the official's decisions. The former mayor, who left office in June 2010 after being convicted on two felony counts related to unethical conduct (see my blog post), took a consulting job with an AIDS organization which, over the last three years, had been awarded a total of $419,132 in federal grant funds that are distributed through the city based in part on the mayor’s recommendation. The most recent grant had been approved less than two months before the mayor resigned.

This would be a good time for Hartford to not only add a revolving door provision to its ethics code, but to take a fresh look at its entire ethics program. As the capital and main city of the state, after a mayor was forced out of office due to unethical conduct, there is no better time to give the city a first-rate ethics program.

Robert Wechsler
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics

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