Posts about Ethics

Escalator reliability reaches 100%: Metro has achieved a new milestone for escalator maintenance. They have now reached a reliability rate of 100%; all escalators are currently broken at the same time. (Examiner, Matt Johnson)

Hop on I-395 PE: With Virginia's new program to sell naming rights to roads, Sudafed has proposed sponsoring all of Northern Virginia's congestion. (WBJ, Steve Offutt)

LOV-0 coming to a road near you: Google is reportedly working on a new program to design "passengerless cars," which will transport no people at all. In anticipation of this breakthrough, VDOT announced a plan to implement "Low-Occupancy Vehicle" lanes for their exclusive use. (Wired, Neil Flanagan)

DC4D4Thomas: DC for Democracy has endorsed Harry Thomas, Jr. as a write-in candidate for the Ward 5 special election. Members cited Thomas' consistency in talking about revitalizing the ward's main streets without making anything happen, creatively moving around money dedicated to serve youth, and his plan to solve transportation problems by setting up a series of Audi dealerships. (Geoff Hatchard)

Norton targets Wyoming: After several unsuccessful efforts to lobby state legislatures to support DC statehood, Eleanor Holmes Norton announced a new strategy to try to remove statehood from Wyoming, as it is smaller than DC. (DCist, Nick Clark)

Most sitting councilmembers aren't supporting this ballot initiative. Their desperate excuse is that a ban on direct corporate funding of campaigns could push corporate dollars into the shady world of political action committees.

But the council has the authority to regulate those PACs, so that argument rings hollow.

Those councilmembers would actually have you believe that the current system of direct corporate contributions to campaigns is transparent by comparison. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Corporate contributors make a mockery of campaign finance rules by cloning themselves to circumvent contribution limits. Corporate donors bundle checks from each of their corporate subsidiaries, even if those subsidiaries do nothing but write checks to councilmembers.

By giving money through these veiled spinoffs, corporations can give many times more than you or I can give. Is that fair? Should your neighbor be able to contribute 12 times more than you because he owns a business with 11 subsidiaries and you do not?

Often, these corporate contributors are land developers who establish each development as a separate limited liability company (LLC), and bundle checks from each LLC to politicians. Using LLCs is particularly shady, as the identities of their owners is legally not public information.

We can strike at the heart of this culture of pay-to-play in DC government by passing this ballot measure. Doing so would force councilmembers to be more responsive to ordinary citizens in order to finance their campaigns.

As long as our politicians bankroll their campaigns with bundled corporate checks, though, we can forget about regulating PACs or passing any other meaningful campaign finance reform. Just last December, the council voted down several amendments to include campaign finance reform in ethics legislation, by a vote of 12-1.

Dissenting councilmembers claimed they voted no because they wanted to wait to address campaign finance reform separately. We aren't holding our breath. Only 2 members co-introduced a comprehensive reform bill, but just last week the rest of the council found time to support a much narrower campaign finance reform fix, limiting money order contributions to $25.

That's a good step, but other issues are equally pressing. Or is the council only willing to deal with the problem of the day on the front page of the newspapers, and none other?

Our patience has run out. As long as corporate owners can walk to a sitting councilmember and, while discussing a city contract, hand them 12 checks from each LLC they own, residents cannot trust our elected officials.

No, Banning corporate contributions to campaigns is not sufficient to reform campaign finance. Yes, it will still be possible for PACs to influence DC Council legislation.

But Initiative 70 will make it a lot harder for corporations to buy votes, and will send a clear message to the Council that continued campaign finance reform, including PAC regulation, can be delayed no longer.

Sign a petition when you vote on April 3rd, or even better, volunteer for DC Public Trust and help collect signatures.

This is the official endorsement of Greater Greater Washington, written by one or more contributors. Active contributors and editors voted on endorsements, and any endorsement reflects a strong majority or greater in favor of endorsing the initiative.

Although Orange has been in office less than a year, he has name recognition from his previous 2 terms on the Council representing Ward 5 and from city-wide elections for Council Chairman and Mayor.

Biddle has strong name recognition too, however. He won the temporary appointment to Brown's seat last year and spent 4 months on the Council. He also ran in the city-wide special election to finish the term and placed third. Voters know his name, and he is likely the most credible challenger to Orange.

Peter Shapiro served on the Prince George's county council for 6 years, but has not run for elected office in DC. E. Gail Anderson Holness is currently an ANC-1B commissioner, representing ANC-1B11 near Howard University.

Edward Wolterbeek has run in several previous elections without much success, including as a Republican for Ward 5 Representative to the DC State Board of Education, Ward 5 Councilmember, Delegate to the US House of Representatives, and ANC-5A12 commissioner.

Last spring, Orange won 4 of the city's 8 wards, with the other 4 split between Bryan Weaver, Sekou Biddle, and Patrick Mara. If the race continues with 5 candidates, Orange could again benefit from a split vote.

However, today is the final day for candidates to file petitions and only Biddle, Orange, and Holness have done so. Shapiro is the only other candidate with a website, so he likely has a more organized campaign than Wolterbeek, who is a perennial candidate.

If none of the other candidates file by today's deadline, Biddle and Holness would be the only challengers. There is a chance that Biddle and Holness could split votes, but it's unclear how Holness could challenge Orange.

Biddle and Orange know each other from last year's election, which became heated at times. In his campaign announcement in November, Biddle attacked Orange for accepting out-of-state campaign donations and for trying to increase Council salaries.

If either Biddle or Holness can tie Orange to bad leadership, the anti-incumbent vote could propel them to victory. If Shapiro and Wolterbeek file in time, the field of challengers will double.

Part of the reason Orange won last April was that Weaver, Biddle, and Mara split the progressive vote, which may not happen this year. But Orange's competitors may split another constituency this year, the anti-incumbent vote.

Biddle has been strong on education, while Shapiro gained a reputation for economic development in Prince George's, although ethics is sure to play a major role. Once the filing deadline passes, we'll explore where the remaining candidates stand on the issues.

Organized by former Barry spokesperson Natalie Williams, now challenging Barry for Ward 8's 2012 DC Council Democratic nomination, the rally attracted community leaders and residents that have sought information on Calvary Women's Services' plan to open a 50-bed shelter on Good Hope Road for the past 6 months without success.

A self-identified "old foot soldier," known widely as the grande dame of Anacostia for her tireless work with children and the homeless, Hannah Hawkins expressed her disappointment in Barry.

"Marion Barry, I love him," said Hawkins, the matriarch at Children of Mine Youth Center on Mount View Place SE. "But he has backed off a lot of these social services issues."

Many in the assemblage questioned Barry's nonattendance. In a recent press release criticizing Williams' candidacy, Barry addressed the women's shelter asserting "This is an issue I investigated and have been working with the Community [sic] on for over three months. Her Johnny-come-lately efforts are just that." No one in the crowd could account for Barry's claims, while some even questioned if there are ulterior motivations for his reluctance to respond to his constituent's concerns.

In reaction to Barry's statement, DC Council Chairman Kwame Brown reprimanded the former mayor for a "potential violation of the Council's Code of Official Conduct" in addition to existing city and federal law that bar electioneering with public resources. The DC GOP questioned Barry's ethics in attacking an opponent on government time.

Many speakers at Thursday's rally were direct in marking the distinction of their opposition. "We are not against women's shelter, we are not against homelessness," Fuller said. "What we are against is the oversaturation of these services in a condensed area."

Some highlights include requiring councilmembers to file an annual affidavit in which they certify they paid all of their taxes and have not "been offered or accepted any bribes" or engaged in any "pay to play schemes." Really?

In the words of the teenagers I work with: "C'mon Son!!!"

The law fails to address or enact any real protections against "pay-to-play."

On November 30, Councilmember Tommy Wells (Ward 6) introduced two amendments to the bill. The first amendment would close a loophole that allows corporations to give numerous campaign contributions through subsidiary Limited Liability Corporations (LLC). Wells' amendment would limit corporations to just one contribution.

The second amendment banned companies with city contracts from giving directly to political campaigns, because councilmembers often vote on contracts for those same companies.

The Council rejected each of Wells' amendments by 12 to 1 votes. Wells seemed to have support from Cecily Collier-Montgomery, director of the Office of Campaign Finance, who said, "It certainly would make it a lot easier to enforce in terms of corporations and subsidiaries sharing a single contribution limit.

William Sanford, General Counsel of OCF went further, saying, "We agree that bundling should be prohibited and perhaps it could be more specifically addressed in this or other legislation."

Even Councilmember Jim Graham (Ward 1) openly stated during debate that every time a councilmember takes a check from a corporation, there is a string attached. Astutely, Mr. Graham has touched the heart of "Pay to Play."

When it became obvious that no other member of the council was was willing to ban subsidiary corporations from giving multiple contributions, Wells regrouped and offered a compromise for the final vote on December 20. He proposed sunlight provisions that would require LLCs to disclose their controlling interest, and require corporations with contracts with the city to disclose those contracts when contributing to local political campaigns.

Every councilmember talks about the importance of disclosure, transparency and sunlight, making this an obvious compromise. Don't ban a corporation's ability to bundle, just make the disclosure more transparent. As a friend of mine likes to say about the DC Council, "It's all about getting to 7 votes."

One would think this a no-brainer. Wells' office went back to Sanford, the OCF General Counsel, to ask for advice. He responded by saying, "The language you have suggested appears to require clarification of the relationship between subsidiaries and parent corporations which may have controlling interest. Therefore, from an enforcement standpoint it would result in a greater degree of transparency."

Armed with support of OCF and a willingness of the Council to create stronger "open government" laws, Wells brought his two sunshine amendments to the floor. Each amendment still fell 12 to 1.

And with that, the council punted on a golden opportunity to show the residents of DC that they are serious about ethics, committed to ridding our government of the corrupting influence of money, and that DC will no longer be the butt of jokes on late-night talk shows.

It is heartbreaking that in the capital city of the world's greatest democracy, the effort for transparency and accountability—values that people are giving life and limb for around the world—would fail so miserably and so anticlimactically.

Big money diminishes accountability, transparency and inclusiveness in our government. It determines who runs for office and where those candidates stand on the issues.

Money should not determine how our elected officials spend their time in the Wilson Building. Issues facing the city should do that. Problems facing the residents should come first.

The DC Council would do well in recognizing they still have some serious work to do if they are going to be taken seriously by voters.

Additionally, only 5 of the 13 Councilmembers raised more than $40,000 for their Constituent Service Funds last year, and 4 of them raised between $40,000 and $50,000. Only Jack Evans, who raised $85,000, would be really effected by the new limit.

The draft ethics bill further limits the use of Constituent Service Funds by defining more narrowly what they can be spent on. The loopholes, however, are obvious for all to see. They can't be spent on season tickets to sports events, but they can be spent on individual game tickets. They can't be spent to promote a Councilmember, but they can be spent on community events sponsored by the Councilmember.

In 2010 only three sitting Council members spent 25% or more of their CSF's on constituent needs (Vince Gray spent 28% on constituent needs before being elected mayor). Conversely, 6 Council members spent more than 60% of their funds on the "other" category. If these numbers were reversed, there still wouldn't be enough CSF money going to needy District residents.

At the end of the day, the amount spent by Councilmembers meeting the daily needs of constituents through these funds ($48,271) is a tiny drop in the bucket relative to the needs of a city in which 30% of children live in poverty. Instead of giving needy constituents crumbs from their table of wealthy donors, Councilmembers should address the root causes of poverty and unemployment that create these needs in the first place.

Unfortunately, the powers of the board are limited and politicized, the other provisions of the bill have obvious loopholes, and several important reforms are not fully addressed.

The bill takes positive steps to strengthen regulation of inaugural and transition committees. It requires that these committees report their finances in the same way that principal campaign committees do, and it sets limits on the amount that individuals can contribute. The bill also has fairly strong financial disclosure provisions that would make potential conflicts of interest easier to identify.

Unfortunately, the bill's efforts related to lobbying reform and constituent service funds are weak and riddled with loopholes.

The bill prohibits lobbyists, or those working on their behalf, from offering legal or professional services to public officials or staff at reduced or no cost. There are two serious problems with this provision.

First, it does not prohibit public officials from receiving legal or professional services at little or no cost from someone who is not a registered lobbyist. Public officials should be required to pay market value for any services that they receive.

Second, it allows registered lobbyists to provide legal and professional services to public officials, provided they are adequately compensated. Any circumstance involving a public official hiring and compensating a registered lobbyist to advise them on issues in any way related to council business is a clear conflict of interest and should be prohibited.

Additionally, the bill does nothing to stop lobbyists or businesses from donating to political campaigns, transition and inauguration committees, or constituent service funds.

The bill's attempts to reform constituent service funds are reactionary, weak, and full of loopholes. While prohibiting CSF money from being used to purchase "year-long or season admissions to theatrical, sporting, or cultural events," the bill doesn't prohibit CSF's from buying tickets in any other format.

Of more concern, the financial disclosure requirements do not appear to meet the standards set in other sections of the bill. Unlike transition and inaugural committees, which have to report the name, address, and place of business of their donors, constituent service funds are only required to report "contributions and expenditures ... quarterly". The bill should include specific language requiring CSFs to disclose detailed information about donors.

The bill chooses not to lead on some issues that have been well publicized recently. Instead of making specific proposals on corporate bundling of campaign contributions and nepotism and cronyism in city government, the bill leaves it up to the board to decide policy on these important issues.

That board, as proposed, has problems of its own. Members of the board would be nominated by the mayor and approved by the council. This leaves little room for public input on nominees. District citizens will be relying on the city's most political figures to fill what is intended to be a non-political body. The bill should be amended to allow for some form of public input on nominees to the board.

Additionally, there is no guarantee of minority party, or independent, representation on the board. This may have been intentional and intended to keep the appearance of politics out of the process. But, in a city so dominated by the Democratic party, minority representation is necessary.

The board is given the power to fine and even censure public officials for violations. However, it does not have the power to strip council members, or other elected officials, of committee assignments or votes. Instead, all that the board can do is recommend that the council "consider suspending or removing a Council member's committee chairmanship ... membership ... or the member's vote." The council has no obligation to act on such a recommendation. Additionally, the bill does not specify procedures for censure and removal of ANC commissioners or members of the School Board.

The ethics board should be given the power to truly sanction elected officials, including ANC commissioners and School Board members, for violating ethics and disclosure rules. Real accountability will not be possible as long as this power remains in the hands of political bodies.

The proposal as drafted is not a complete failure, but it will require significant changes to become an ethics bill that the District deserves.

The Government Operations committee will be holding a roundtable on November 30 to discuss the bill. You can register to testify at the roundtable by signing up online, or contacting Judah Gluckman, the committee's legislative counsel, at 202-724-8025 or jgluckman@dccouncil.us. You can also submit a written statement to the Committee on Government Operations, Council of the District of Columbia, Suite 113 of the John A. Wilson Building, 1350 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20004 no later than November 30, 2011.