Supermajority Votes in the Probable Cause Phase of Ethics Enforcement

Requiring supermajority votes by ethics commissions to find probable
cause or a violation is probably the best obstacle elected officials can
place in the way of effective ethics enforcement. This is especially true of
the probable cause phase, if there is one.<br>
<br>

Take the typical five-member town or small city ethics commission. It is common for two
members to be from one party, two members to be from another party, and
a fifth to be independent or from a third party. When probable cause
has to be found before a complaint becomes public, a supermajority
requirement (four of five members) allows one political party to prevent a
complaint against one of its party members from even becoming public.<br>
<br>
In fact, since it is very difficult to get five citizens together for a
meeting, a supermajority requirement effectively requires a unanimous
vote (or even one member more than a three-member quorum) just to get to the stage of a public hearing. This is a very high
hurdle to jump.<br>
<br>
Those writing codes, amending codes, or critiquing codes should give
special attention to any supermajority requirements that exist or that
the powers that be are pushing for. They will speak of protecting
officials from frivolous complaints, but a majority vote does this
perfectly well. In fact, the principal point of having a probable cause
phase is to prevent frivolous allegations from going public.<br>
<br>
A supermajority requirement skews this protection far too strongly in
the official's favor, to the detriment of the public's trust in the
system:  if one party or one person can block a complaint from becoming public,
no one will believe in the enforcement process, and the entire ethics
program will become seen as a political game.<br>
<br>
Robert Wechsler<br>
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics<br>
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