Loathe as the Louisiana Legislature might be to get into the nuts and
bolts of adjudicating ethics matters of elected and appointed officials, it
looks as if it will need to do so again as kinks continue to crop up from the
massive reform of ethics laws and in their adjudication from the 2008-09
period.
Back then, after incoming Gov. Bobby
Jindal made it one of the centerpieces of his successful campaign, in a
special session he called this finally got the Legislature to pass much more
stringent standards in acceptable practices and disclosure. Subsequently, other
changes got made to make more professional the adjudicatory aspect,
depoliticizing it and focusing the Louisiana Board of Ethics on the prosecutorial
aspect. Previously, the Board had been all of judge, jury, and executioner,
which gave inordinate power the small coterie of staff members and allowed
politics to creep into judgments with the political appointees of the Board determining
whether to follow staff recommendations on prosecution, guilt or innocence, and
in punishment.
In fact, the majority of power was concentrated in the hands of the
ethics administrator, then long-time employee Gray Sexton. However, the year
before the sweeping changes occurred, a law
was enacted that prohibited the administrator from essentially operating his
own private practice on the side and mandating financial disclosure of the
administrator. Rather than follow these guidelines, he
quit, saying this change constituted some kind of vendetta against him by
disgruntled politicians whom had faced the Board, and then gathered further
negative publicity when he and the Board tried to get around the new law with a
contractual arrangement for his services that got scuttled.
Denied now any powerful role in this area, Sexton since has gone whole
hog in defending the very class of individuals he claimed were out to get him.
And, far more than anybody else, he has been able to expose through a number of
high profile defense actions the loopholes and loose ends left from the
revamping.
Last session, the Legislature did delve back into the area by
clarifying Board
appellate actions into the judiciary and procedural
matters, but in doing the latter allowed Sexton to open
another can of worms regarding the issue of discovery. Essentially, the
Board has followed what one statute argues in terms of disclosure of
information by public bodies but which conflicts with provisions passed last
year regarding the extent of information in the discovery process that must be
turned over to defendants in ethics cases.
Board President Blake Monrose seems content to let the courts decide
the matter, during which in the interim more cases may get dismissed by the
administrative law judges that comprise this year’s edition of the Ethics
Adjudicatory Board because the Board continues to follow the other disclosure
law. To reverse course and not do that with ethics cases while awaiting any decision
on the matter, in essence jettisoning that interpretation in favor of the
language of last year’s law, might encourage the judiciary to decide in favor
of that law over the current interpretation.
This situation cries out for, yet again, legislative intervention, but
also puts policy-makers at a crossroads. No doubt the professionalization of the
process helps to make better decisions, but it also requires
professionalization in all aspects. If the system is evolving to a process that
mirrors the judicial process in the area of criminal law (with more egregious
offenses already subject to that), then it needs to mimic that in other ways
such as in the discovery process.
Note that this also means greater resource demands on ethics
administration as a consequence of the tweaked process. In tight budgetary
times policy-makers understandably act even more reluctantly than usual to fund
these matters, but the importance of doing it right was underscored recently
when Forbes Magazine online ran a piece
from one of its stable of local business cheerleaders emphasizing improvement
in the state’s business climate came partly as a result of improved perceptions
over ethics in government.
1 comment:
I thought Bobby fixed all of this five years ago.
That's what he told everyone.
I would suggest that Ethics enforcement has never been in more of a mess or weaker, than now after five years of our present Administration.
Post a Comment