Ethics People Can Believe In

In the half century since a corrupt mayor, Frank Shaw, was ousted from City Hall, Los Angeles has witnessed no civic debate more important than the one that will occur on Wednesday, when the full City Council undertakes an extraordinary discussion of the proposed City of Los Angeles Ethics Act.

However the people of this community remember the 15 current council members in the future, their recollection inevitably must include where they stood on this historically crucial question. The issue is clearly drawn: Either the council will restore to this city a government on whose basic integrity the people can rely or the people will have to assume that task themselves through the initiative process. Clearly, the former alternative is preferable not only because it avoids an expensive and rancorous campaign, but because the people’s confidence in government is bound to be bolstered if they see that their elected officials set their own house in order.

The tool with which to accomplish that--the City of Los Angeles Ethics Act--now is in the council’s hands. It is worth recalling how it got there. On the day after his reelection, Mayor Tom Bradley, whose own ethical and legal problems remain unresolved, appointed an independent commission of distinguished private citizens to write a new code of governmental ethics for the city. The result, published less than two months ago, was a series of 30 specific recommendations that made up the most important and comprehensive civic reform package since the Progressive Era. It already has been widely hailed as a model to the nation.

In the weeks since, the commission and its chairman, public-interest lawyer Geoffrey Cowan, have entered into a pragmatic, but highly principled, round of negotiations with members of the City Council on an omnibus ordinance that would write those 30 conclusions into law. The fruits of that labor are embodied in the proposed Ethics Act now to be debated.

In its final form, the act differs from the commission’s original recommendations on two points and omits a third. None of these compromises in any way departs materially from the spirit of the commission’s charge.

The commission, for example, originally sought a total ban on all outside earned income by all elected officials and certain senior public employees. That proposal has been amended to forbid income earned from any entity doing business in or with the city of Los Angeles. Other such income would be allowed, providing the new city ethics commission gives its approval and certifies that the activity involved does not create a conflict of interest.

The original proposal also envisioned a complete prohibition of so-called “office-holder committees,” as money-raising devices for elected officials. But, presented with examples of how many council members use the discretionary funds raised by these committees to provide additional staff positions and to cover the cost of other worthwhile activities, the commission has agreed simply to limit the size of the funds to $25,000 and to put a $500 ceiling on any individual’s contributions to any and all such committees. Finally, while the commission originally asked for new disclosure requirements for lobbyists, it now feels that can be accomplished by improving legislation being considered by the council’s own Ethics Committee.

The commission’s major proposals have been preserved or strengthened in the Ethics Act: There will be a city ethics commission with the power to conduct investigations, issue subpoenas and compel testimony under oath. If necessary, it will be able to obtain the help of a special prosecutor. There will be tough new financial disclosure rules for city officials and common-sense limits on investments, as well as a ban on honorariums and a ceiling on gifts. Perhaps most important of all, there will be partial public funding of all campaigns, limits on campaign spending and realistic caps on contributions. In fact, during the negotiations with the council, these proposals were strengthened to include 50% public financing of all run-off elections and requirements that recipients of public financing agree to timely debates with their opponents.

These are tough-minded, pragmatic steps. But if the council attempts to alter them in some substantial way, the compromise on which they rest will dissolve. Some lawmakers, for instance, believe that the proposals ought to be amended to include a formula giving council members, who now are paid $61,522 a year, a raise by linking their salaries to those of municipal court judges, who now receive $80,000 a year. That’s an imminently reasonable suggestion, but only if it is put before the voters as a separate charter amendment. The City of Los Angeles Ethics Act is too visionary and vital a piece of legislation to be compromised by any other considerations. The council ought to pass it as it is.