Ethics Awards

Anonymous

Thu, 10/22/2009 - 10:07

County Related

<a href="http://www.globalethics.org/">Global Ethics</a>, an
organization run by Rushworth Kidder, author of <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/node/259">Moral Courage</a> and other books,
has a good Ethics Newsline, which you can subscribe to. His <a href="http://www.globalethics.org/newsline/2009/10/19/ethics-awards/">lead
article </a>this week is about government ethics awards, inspired by
what
happened in Hillsborough County, which includes Tampa.

I think it's good to try positive approaches to local government
ethics. According to <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125435563730154467.html">an
article in the Wall Street Journal</a>, after three
county commissioners were convicted of extorting money from people
seeking zoning changes back in 1992, the Hillsborough county commissioners sponsored
a Moral Courage Award. Nominations are made by the public to a citizens'
committee for someone who has "dared to speak out on issues" in order to
help "disinfect" county politics. It appears that many of the awards have gone
to citizens who fought development and other changes in the county, often in their own
backyard. 
 
In 2008, a posthumous nomination came in for Ralph Hughes, a wealthy
building materials manufacturer and anti-tax campaigner who had given
loads of money to county commissioners and others to push for
development in everyone's backyards. The citizens' committee
unanimously rejected the nomination, and selected instead a man who had
"opposed a rule that makes homeowners install sewage-backflow valves."
That doesn't sound like disinfection to me. 
 
The county commission was upset, and decided to name the award after
Hughes. At the next commission meeting, one award winner handed his
trophy (a clear plastic obelisk) back to the commission. 
 
And then, according to Kidder, "the IRS billed [Hughes'] estate for
nearly $70
million in unpaid levies, and the U.S. Department of Justice is suing
the company he owned to recover $300 million in back taxes." Hughes'
son asked that his father's name be taken off the award, according to
the Journal article. 
 
Awarding the Person or the Conduct? 
There are two issues here, only one of which Kidder focuses on. He says
that "ethics is not an inoculation, but
a process," and that people who act courageously in one situation, and
get an ethics award, may in the future act in ways that undermine the
purpose behind such an award. "If the honoree is plagued by subsequent
moral failings, how effective
will the award be in inspiring a new generation? Should we hold up as a
moral exemplar someone who, one cold winter night, stood up for the
homeless — only later to become a notorious wife-beater?" 
 
Kidder recognizes that this is true of any award, not just ethics
awards. Look at the
controversy over Pete Rose, for instance, or later ballplayers who have
taken illegal substances. 
 
For me the problem here isn't that people might act badly after getting
an award for acting good. The problem is recognizing the individual
rather than the
act. If a council member handles a difficult conflict situation in a
very responsible way and gets an award for that conduct, it doesn't
matter to the award if he later beats his wife, cheats on his taxes, or
takes a bribe. What he did to get the award is still laudable. 
 
As I argued in a recent <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/content/character-and-government-ethics">blog
post</a>, people aren't separated into good and bad. They act well and
badly in different situations. A politician who shows
moral courage in opposition may show little when in power. A citizen
who fights to prevent development in her neighborhood may push for
development elsewhere if it helps her employer. That doesn't
mean the moral courage was not worthy of emulation, only that people's
personal interests often get in the way. 
 
Naming Awards or Anything Else 
By awarding specific conduct rather than an individual, it doesn't
matter what that individual does in the future. But naming an award (or
a school or a bridge or anything else) after an individual focuses
solely on the individual. And this individual did more questionable
things than fail to pay his taxes. 
 
Not only had Hughes shown little or no moral courage in his dealings
with government, he had given commissioners a great deal of money and,
it is said, used hand signals at meetings to tell them how to vote. You
don't give an ethics award to someone with whom you have a monetary relationship, that is, where there is a conflict. 
 
In addition, there is nothing laudable about being against taxes, even
if you actually do pay them. A former county employee is quoted by the
Journal as saying, "it was strange to name an award for [Hughes]. ...
The government gives it for being against the government. Strange as
hell." 
 
Governments should name things only after people who have consistently
served the public interest rather than themselves. There is no
sacrifice of one's personal interests in pushing for developments when
you run a building materials company. There is no sacrifice of one's
personal interests in opposing taxes when you are wealthy and expected
to pay a lot of them. Which brings me to the next issue: 
 
Which Sort of Ethical Conduct Should Be Awarded? 
For me, the biggest problem with government ethics awards is the
criteria to use, how to define ethical conduct. 
 
The Hillsborough County award is specifically for moral courage, but
moral courage is not even a virtue in and of itself. It is what is
referred to as an enabling or instrumental virtue. That is, in many
situations moral courage is required to act ethically. Acting ethically
has two steps: recognizing the problem and acting on it. Moral courage
is often necessary to go from the first step to the second step. 
 
There are two kinds of moral courage in local government situations.
One involves a citizen, official, or employee standing up publicly to
government officials who use their power to intimidate or who make
misrepresentations. Disagreeing on an issue does not otherwise require moral courage, only the courage to get up in front of an audience and speak. 
 
For those who have something to lose, it requires
much courage to take on those who can affect your job, hurt your
business, or ruin your political future or your reputation in the
community. But here, although moral courage enables an important act --
speaking truth to power -- it does not enable an ethical act, in the
sense of government ethics. 
 
The second sort of moral courage involves dealing responsibly with
conflicts, the heart of government ethics: disclosing and
recusing, giving up a business or clients where there is an ongoing
conflict, resigning from a board when conflicts make your membership
seem improper. If done right, this conduct
occurs without any fanfare and, therefore, is difficult to recognize. The more fanfare, the more likely the official is acting to
score political points, which means there is little or no moral courage
involved. 
 
Officials' most difficult ethical conduct involves identifying a
colleague's unethical conduct. It's easy to point out unethical conduct
by one's opponents. But when one is a member of the majority, and the
ethical environment is based on secrets, denial, and intimidation, any
opposition or disclosure, especially regarding conflicts between
personal interests and the public interest, can mean that the
individual is cut off from power. In a local government with a poor
ethical environment, it is highly unlikely that such an individual
would be given an ethics award. 
 
The Hillsbourgh county commissioners went wrong right at the start. The
county's problem was not the citizens' lack of moral courage, it was a
pay-to-play ethical environment that, most likely, other officials knew
about (as did those who paid what they were asked), but lacked the
moral courage to criticize publicly. The county government's problem
was not one involving issues or developments, but poor ethics pure and
simple. The citizens who lacked the courage were not ordinary citizens,
but people in government or doing business with government. It is their
ethical conduct that should be awarded by government. Let
civic organizations such as Common Cause and the League of Women Voters
give awards to citizens who speak out on issues. 
 
Are Ethics Awards Valuable? 
Whoever selects the
person or conduct to be awarded a prize needs to be truly independent
and
yet knowledgeable about what goes on in politics in general and in the
city or county specifically. That's a hard
combination to find. 
 
An ethics award focused on ethical conduct in the government ethics
sense would either be very unsexy, or would tend to go to those who
deserve it the least, especially when there is a poor ethical
environment. Such awards would also go only to government officials and
employees, lobbyists, and those who do business with the government,
not the sort of people citizen committees are interested in (officials might have a conflict if they selected award
winners). As in Hillsborough County, citizens prefer giving awards to
citizens, and except for those doing business with the local
government, citizens are rarely in a position to act ethically, in the
government ethics sense. 
 
So, although the idea of a government ethics award is a good one on
paper, I think it would be very hard to make it work. The odds are that
the term "ethics" would be greatly broadened, and as in Hillsborough, people actively pushing their personal interests would get the
award. An ethics award certainly creates an appearance of propriety in
a community, and might be worth doing for that reason alone, but it is
not likely to make people act more ethically, in the government ethics
sense. 
 
I think it's preferable for government leaders to give extra raises and
promotions to government employees who act ethically, who include
ethical analysis in all the decisions they make. Publicly praising officials, of any party or none, who act ethically is also valuable. This sort of ethical
leadership sends a message to everyone in government and everyone doing
business with government that ethical conduct is highly valued. 
 
Robert Wechsler 
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics 
 
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