Posts about Ethics

It's pretty blatant, too. Brown isn't rearranging all the committees. He's just singling out Wells for punishment.

Wells will get the Committee on Libraries, Parks and Recreation, generally considered the least desirable post one of the least desirable posts. Mary Cheh, who is still close to Brown and his number two as Chair Pro Tempore, will take over Public Works and Transportation as well as keeping the Department of the Environment. Muriel Bowser, who got Parks and Rec in January because of her support for Mayor Fenty, will get Government Operations.

Committees are rarely shifted mid-term, and only to take responsibilities away from a member facing scandal. This may be the first time in history a committee is taken away midway from a member for being honest.

Brown had the opportunity to alter committees because Harry Thomas, Jr. stepped down from the Committee on Econmic Development amid his own ethical problems. Brown moved economic development into the Committee of the Whole, under his direct control.

Vincent Orange (at-large) wanted Economic Development, but Brown didn't want to give it to him because of their rivalry in the race for chair (and, perhaps, because Orange has a poor track record on economic development).

Instead, Brown is proposing a new, smaller committee with only oversight of the Department of Small & Local Business Development and some other smaller agencies, and is keeping Economic Development in the Committee of the Whole.

Since Orange has no committee today, there's no need for any further reshuffling. But apparently Brown is still sore from the report.

Ironically, however, that report could have been the best thing for Brown. It got the issue fully into the spotlight, reducing the long drip of new scandal news. It put a fair amount of blame on the Department of Public Works as well as on Brown.

Had Brown embraced the report, apologized for his missteps, and pushed to fix policies around official vehicles for the future to stop such failures from recurring, he could have put the issue behind him.

Brown had many opportunities to start rebuilding the Council's reputation. Instead, he has continued to drag it into the gutter. He told colleagues that his own campaign finance scandals didn't go any deeper, and then they did.

The Council started the year with very high esteem among the populace, after a term of steady and effective leadership under Vincent Gray. Now, it's widely derided, and rightly so, with many of its members facing some ethical questions.

Now, he's even transferring the DC Council's voting seat on the WMATA Board. That's quite ironic. Last year, before becoming chair, Kwame Brown participated in a secretive committee to study WMATA governance, dominated by the Board of Trade. One of the better recommendations from that committee was to make board appointments based less on politics. Now, Brown is reassigning the post once again based solely on politics, and dirty personal ones at that.

By putting politics over progress, Brown is abandoning a commitment to make transportation better in DC. The people of Ward 7, where Brown himself lives, could suffer. Wells was making improving bus service east of the Anacostia a cornerstone of his chairmanship. He hosted listening sessions in wards 4, 5, 7, and 8, got WMATA to promise technological upgrades for Metrobuses east of the river, and pushed the east of the river Circulator even though it meant losing some service in Ward 6.

Cheh, on the other hand, complained in the budget that the Circulator is going east of the river but doesn't go to the Palisades. Was that just posturing for her ward, or will she really push for more transportation spending in Ward 3 over other parts of DC?

Cheh is one of the least bad alternatives to head transportation, but it'll break the forward momentum that's been built with Council working closely with DDOT. Wells' staff has a deep understanding of transportation issues, including some carried over from when Jim Graham ran the committee. That institutional memory will likely be lost.

Plus, as Brown's closest confidante on the Council, Cheh could have tried to talk him out of this move which clearly makes him look petty. Does she also think keeping Brown's scandals quiet is the top public policy goal for the Council? Or is she sore with Tommy Wells for stymieing her plan to pretend to support the bond tax in place of an income tax, but then try to get both out of the budget?

DDOT is at a crossroads. New Director Terry Bellamy, formerly Gabe Klein's deputy, could aggressively move to implement the ambitious Action Agenda that Klein put together, including pedestrian safety, bikeshare expansion, cycle tracks, bus priority lanes, real-time bus information, Circulator expansion, performance parking and more.

Or, Bellamy could let inertia win out, not making the tough calls and allowing projects to stagnate when the public isn't unified for or against them, as they usually aren't. Wells and his team were well situated to push DDOT to achieve its potential.

By taking Wells off the committee for transparently political reasons, Brown is showing that forward progress in the District isn't foremost in his mind. Instead, punishing those who don't cover up his own ethical failings is the priority. At least now, we know exactly what kind of man we have as Chairman.

The Council typically goes along with a chairman's committee choices, but they all have to vote on the recommendation this morning. Will this Council really stand by and let Brown do this? If they do, each member will be sending the message that it's appropriate to cover up a colleague's misdeeds.

What, then, should the public assume is behind each future decision the Council makes? Or the difficult decisions they do not make? Email Brown and the Council or call Brown's office at (202) 724-8032 to remind them that this unprecedented, vindictive move will further degrade the reputations of Brown, each member who votes aye, and that of the Council as a whole.

Update: Mary Cheh has sent me the following statement:

Kwame decided to reshuffle and make more coherent committee functions. And yesterday he told me of his plan to emphasize the environmental work in one committee, bringing back environment to public works and transportation (stormwater, recycling and waste management, transportation policy, pollution and vehicles, etc. brought together with environmental policy) and he offered the committee to me. I jumped at it and am very enthusiastic.

The argument about making committees more coherent makes little sense when he's also splitting up the traditional Economic Development functions into smaller committees to limit Vincent Orange. We all know why this one area is being singled out. I'm disappointed that Cheh is defending such an ethically suspect move.

The campaign finance bills will:

• Set up reporting requirements for transition and inauguration committees, both a source of unreported contributions in the past for mayors and council chairs.
  
• Ban bundling of corporate contributions, to avoid having companies use many subsidiary LLCs to get around contributions limits as Bryan Weaver explained. I've asked for more information on how banning bundling will address this specific problem.
  
• Require any nonprofits that receive constituent service funds to have been around for 1 year, to avoid officials suddenly creating new ones that they control to either pay themselves or use the money as political favors.
  
• Recalibrate reporting deadlines to account for the new, earlier primary date.

Are there other measures that ought to be in ethics legislation? What about Mitch Wander's 3 "quick fixes" proposals?

What we really need is a radical overhaul of the city's culture and conduct to swing the long arc of good government for DC toward the sunlight. We need clear lines of what is permissible and not another layer of bureaucracy. It is time to turn over the Wilson Building and start shaking.

There are three critical areas of reform that if properly legislated, would bring sweeping reform to the city:

Seats on nonprofit boards

Most people see the conflicts raised in the Attorney General's lawsuit accusing Councilmember Harry Thomas Jr. (D-Ward 5) of misusing more than $300,000 in city money intended for youth baseball on an SUV and trips.

But what got little press recently was a deal struck by Vincent Orange (D-At Large)—from the dais no less—to vote in favor of a budget amendment if amendment supporters sided with his effort to secure $500,000 for the Lincoln Theater. This maneuver gave the amendment enough votes to clear the Council by a 7-6 vote.

What was not discussed during the deal-making is that Orange serves as the volunteer Treasurer for the nonprofit board that runs the Lincoln Theatre. Orange apologists pointed out that he receives no financial compensation from the theatre or its board and that the deal was done transparently so therefore this was not a conflict of interest. I strongly disagree.

On the same day the Council discussed the proposed ethics legislation, the US Supreme Court unanimously upheld a Nevada ethics law that governs when lawmakers should refrain from voting on official business because they might have a conflict of interest—even when that conflict doesn't create a financial gain for the elected official.

The council needs to adopt rules stipulating that any nonprofit that receives D.C. funds cannot have a member of the Council on its board of directors.

Secondary jobs

DC law allows members of the Council to have outside jobs. Further, District rules require lawmakers to make public their outside income sources only if an employer or client did business with the city or stood to gain from pending legislation during the past calendar year.

By contrast, political appointees in the federal government sign ethics forms that must include all clients or employers who have paid the appointee more than $5,000 during a one-year reporting period—regardless of whether the employer or client did business with the government.

Members of Congress (not the most ethical lot), under their Ethics Reform Act, are prohibited from engaging in professions that provide services involving a fiduciary relationship, including the practice of law and the sale of insurance or real estate.

Ethics analysts like Public Citizen have long said that although D.C. lawmakers appear to comply with the letter of the law, the city's rules don't go far enough. The time has come to restrict outside income in the same scope as members of Congress, or at least create detailed disclosure of all outside income.

Corporate campaign contributions

District campaign finance laws are modeled after federal laws, with one big difference: corporations are allowed to directly contribute to local campaigns. And many companies have found a way to give more than others.

A quick review of campaign records for the mayoral and city council candidates will show you which corporations tilt the scales to gain access to the Wilson Building by electing candidates with their business interests at the forefront.

For example, real estate companies own many properties that are separately incorporated. Each incorporated property may make the maximum contribution to a candidate or constituent services fund. It is illegal for a corporation to use subsidiaries or companies under its control to skirt contribution limits, but at the same time, it's perfectly legal for corporations and their owners to make multiple contributions.

Any ethics legislation approved by the Council must institute limits that bar this sort of corporate contribution bundling. It must also include clear disclosure requirements to inform citizens about potential conflicts of interest and influences.

These are just three areas of concern among many. If, instead of learning ethics from watching movies, the city council is serious about ethics reform, this is where they should begin.

As Albert Einstein said, "Relativity applies to physics, not ethics."