An Arrogant Response to an Ethics Report
It's not easy to publicize ethical and unethical activity in a
responsible manner. And when this is done, it can sometimes lead to
false attacks on the the legitimacy of the organization doing the
publicizing. This is what happened this week in Colorado.<br>
<br>
<a href="http://www.coloradoforethics.org/" target="”_blank”">Colorado Ethics Watch</a>
published an <a href="http://www.coloradoforethics.org/files/documents/EthicsRoundup2009_0.pd…; target="”_blank”">Ethics
Roundup</a> this week, giving examples of the good, the bad, and the
ugly among conduct by Colorado government officials and agencies. Including and
starting off with the good is a good idea. I know how easy it is to
focus on the bad and the problematic, but it is also important to
emphasize the good, and to learn from good people and good conduct.<br>
<br>
The principal problem I see in this report is the "ugly" part. The good
and bad are self-explanatory, but the explanation of "ugly" -- lapses
of ethical judgment -- is far from clear or consistent with how we use
"ugly" in such contexts. I think it's valuable to point out
irresponsible responses to conflicts of interest that fall short of
ethics code violations, but the cute categorization based on an old
movie is not quite appropriate and gives the appearance of
unprofessionalism.<br>
<br>
But uglier than this use of "ugly" is the reaction of Colorado Springs
mayor Lionel Rivera to being included in the "ugly" portion of the
report. According to <a href="http://www.gazette.com/articles/ethics-57305-rivera-colorado.html" target="”_blank”">an
article in yesterday's Colorado Springs <i>Gazette</i></a><span>,</span></span> Rivera rejected his designation as "ugly," calling the
organization "a left-leaning organization that likes to target
Republicans." He based this assertion on <a href="http://www.denverpost.com/carroll/ci_11855543" target="”_blank”">a piece by a
conservative columnist</a>, which was quickly picked apart in <a href="http://www.thedenverdailynews.com/article.php?aID=3598" target="”_blank”">a piece
by Colorado Media Matters</a>, which seeks truth in reporting. He also
ignored the fact that the Colorado Ethics Watch report is balanced,
calling one Democrat and one Republican good, and one Democrat, one
Republican, and one Unaffiliated bad. The others identified are not
elected officials.<br>
<br>
This sort of false, <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/node/234" target="”_blank”">ad
hominem attack</a> on the reputation and reliability of the speaker,
rather than the content of the speech, is what people do when they
can't adequately respond to the content.<br>
<br>
The mayor also spoke of how proud he was to be included with the other
individual in the "ugly" category. "He has done great things for the
state of Colorado and the Denver
metro area, and to be put in the same category as Joe Blake, I consider
that a compliment."<br>
<br>
This statement does, I feel, merit being
called "ugly." An official can do valuable things and still act
unethically. In fact, it is often the praise an official gets for his
or her actions that leads to the sort of arrogance, based on a feeling of
entitlement, that so often accompanies unethical conduct (see my <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/node/100" target="”_blank”">blog post</a> on this
topic). Mayor Rivera, in his reaction to the Colorado Ethics Watch
report, displays just that sort of arrogance.<br>
<br>
Robert Wechsler<br>
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics<br>
<br>
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