Truth Is Too Slippery, and Too Precious, A Thing to Enforce
The biggest thing missing from ethics codes is lying. Everyone agrees
that a government official or employee who lies lacks integrity, but
ethics codes almost never prohibit this.<br>
<br>
It isn't that lying is okay, it's just very hard to enforce. Defending
a lie leads to more lies and other forms of dishonesty. It can get really
ugly.<br>
<br>
That's why it's better to deal with truth-telling in a positive,
unenforceable way in aspirational codes, such as the American Society
for Public Administration's code,
which is included in the <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/mc/full" target="”_blank”">City Ethics Model Code</a> before the
enforceable provisions.<br>
<br>
Here's an example of what can happen when lying is prohibited. In
Wisconsin, according to <a href="http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/44745697.html" target="”_blank”">an
article in the Milwaukee </a><span><a href="http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/44745697.html" target="”_blank”">Journal
Sentinel</a>,</span> judicial candidates are prohibited from lying
about their opponents.<br>
<br>
One state supreme court candidate's ad talked about the other
candidate's defense, as a public defender, of a man accused of
molesting a girl. "[The opponent] found a loophole. [The accused] went
on to rape another child," the ad said.<br>
<br>
The
ad did not mention that although the judicial candidate got the
conviction overturned on
appeal, the state supreme court later upheld the conviction, and the
accused served his full sentence before raping another child. The later
crime had nothing to do with the judicial candidate's defense.<br>
<br>
A complaint was filed by the state judicial commission with respect
to this ad. The candidate who ran the ad won the race. It is before a
three-judge ethics panel, which will report to the state supreme court,
on which the winning candidate sits.<br>
<br>
Here's how the now-justice defended himself: According to the
article, he said the complaint should be dismissed because it is based
on what viewers might have inferred from the
ad, rather than what the ad actually said. "The text does not say that
offense was committed <i>because </i>Louis
Butler succeeded in reversing his conviction. While that may be an
inference a given person
might draw, the actual statement says Mr. Mitchell 'went on' to commit
another offense."<br>
<br>
According to the article, the now-justice also argued that the First
Amendment protects implications made in
political speech, saying that only objectively false statements can be
regulated.<br>
<br>
In other words, you can lie all you want as long as you can
successfully argue that it wasn't a false statement, but a false
implication, even if that false implication was clearly intended to
give listeners a false belief.<br>
<br>
This lie is worse than the first. And that's what trying to enforce
against lying usually leads to: worse and worse lies. And hiding
behind the First Amendment, of course.<br>
<br>
The First Amendment is very big, and I think the justice will
successfully hide behind it. He will then have both the law and the
constitution on the side of crafty misrepresentation. Wisconsin will be
worse off than if no complaint had been brought.<br>
<br>
For more on this topic, see <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/node/487" target="”_blank”">this blog entry</a> called
"Truth-Telling."<br>
<br>
Robert Wechsler<br>
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics<br>
<br>
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