Unethical Politicians? Let's Name Names
[ Patrick Tuohey ]News reports indicate that senator Matt Bartle was interviewed by federal prosecutors as part of their investigation into corruption in Jefferson City. This along with the various investigations, guilty pleas and resignations from the Missouri legislature have prompted many to take up ethics reform.
Unsurprisingly, politics play a role. Democrats want to limit campaign contributions because they think doing so will hurt Republicans. Republicans agree it will hurt them and therefore are unlikely to support them. Gov Nixon wants to distract his own problems telling the truth about E coli contamination and is happy to focus on the General Assembly.
Legislators also face a conflict of interest. Dare they report colleagues they suspect of being unethical? If the Capitol is so rife with corruption, why won't anyone step forward and name names?
The answer is that no one wants to play the bad guy. So rather than live up to their sworn duty to protect Missourians, legislators want to craft complex ethics rules to try to keep the bad apples among them from being so bad. But the inherent flaw an any legislative effort to fight corruption is that solutions are reactionary. Bills will always be attempting to correct the flaws of the previous cycle.
More than likely, complicated ethics rules will serve only to ensnare the well-meaning and label minor missteps as so-called ethical lapses. And it will likely favor seasoned politicians and professional consultants who are more familiar with the process than political upstarts.
Tony Messenger reported in a story about Rod Jetton that even if ethics bills could be agreed upon, it still doesn't address the issue:
The problem isn't so much the laws, said Peggy Kerns, director for the Center for Ethics in Government. It's personal value systems.
"We talk about ethics as your value system, not laws," Kerns told Missouri senators during a seminar earlier this session.
A better solution would involve a complete deregulation of campaign finance coupled with much stricter reporting requirements. If Jim Nutter or Rex Sinquefield want to write fat checks, that is their right. And partisans, bloggers and special interests should be able to know of it immediately and act accordingly. This better fits the political skepticism that has characterized the American citizen since before we were a country.
Any other approach is reactive, makes compliance an expensive insiders' game and lacks credibility because it tells voters that the legislature can act ethically even if individual legislators cannot.
As for those legislators with a "personal value system," they should step forward and tell us who among them are the bad guys. Anything less makes them complicit in unethical behavior, and proves that this drive toward more and more ethics regulation is political theatre.
2/8/2010 12:04:55 PM
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- Table of Contents
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- Repealing the 17th Amendment
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- Missouri's Stake In The Energy Debate
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- The Rise of the Patriot
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- Ned Ryun: The Fight for the Founders
The fight for a more free America will take courage and will suffer losses, but the battle is worthwhile.
- The Coming Political Dissonance
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- Ike Skelton: Do Ask, Do Tell
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- Need a Bridge?
Free-spending Republicans like Kit Bond are worse than Democrats, because they understand the principles of limited government and intentionally ignore them.
