District Attorney Insists, "My Staff Has Been Following My [Ethics] Rules"
<a href="http://www.cityethics.org/content/taking-state-laws-account-when-drafti…; target="”_blank”">Last
week, I wrote</a> about a Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision
invalidating a Montgomery County's ethics code to the extent it applied to the
employees of independent agencies, such as the district attorney's
office.<br>
<br>
According to <a href="http://perkiomenvalley.patch.com/articles/montgomery-county-da-risa-vet…; target="”_blank”">an
article in yesterday's Pokiomen Valley <i>Patch</i></a>, the district
attorney, who brought the suit, spoke publicly about the decision. She
said, “[The county commissioners'] actions were nothing more than an interference on the
independence of an elected official. ... I have extensive ethical
guidelines. My staff has been following my rules all along, not the
[county] commissioners'.”<br>
<br>
For one thing, those extensive ethical guidelines are not available on <a href="http://da.montcopa.org/da/site/default.asp" target="”_blank”">the DA's website</a>,
so the public cannot know whether they even cover the same areas as the
county ethics code.<br>
<br>
Second, it is disconcerting in a discussion of an area that is intended
to separate the public and the private to hear an elected officials
talk about "my rules" or ethics rules as "interference on the
independence of an elected official."<br>
<br>
No ethics rules are any individual's rules, and no individual should
hide them from the public. And yes, ethics rules are intended to
interfere with the independence of elected officials, because elected
officials have obligations to the public that limit their independence.<br>
<br>
Third, even though an independent agency may not be required by law to
embrace a city or county's ethics code, it has not only the option to
do so, but an obligation to seriously consider accepting the entire
code or, if it already has a code, any provisions that would improve
its code. To treat an ethics code simply as interference and to act as
if one's own code is the be-all and end-all is to disparage the
public's other representatives and turn your back on policies that
might improve public trust in your agency.<br>
<br>
What the DA has done is exactly what she accuses the county
commissioners of doing: politicizing ethics. She talks only of
power, independence, and rights, and says nothing about obligations,
trust, or dealing responsibly with conflicts of interest. She talks
only of <b>her</b> office and says nothing of the public interest.<br>
<br>
Robert Wechsler<br>
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics<br>
<br>
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