<p>This is the third of four blog posts on Zephyr Teachout's excellent new book, <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=dctwBAAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=one…; target="”_blank”"><em>Corruption in America</em></a>: <em>From Benjamin Franklin's Snuff Box to Citizens United</em> (Harvard Univ. Press).<br />
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<strong>Other Anti-Corruption Laws</strong><br />
Teachout is good at presenting laws as anti-corruption laws which are not usually considered this way. For example, the Seventeenth Amendment, which provided for the direct election of U.S. senators, ensured that they were more likely to be independent (at least until campaigns became very expensive). And antitrust laws were in part an attempt to prevent the creation of the sort of huge companies that are more easily able to control government officials. The Takings Clause, as well as the copyright and patents clause, were "intended as at least a partial limitation on the power to corruptly sell special property privileges."<br />
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We often forget about the Twenty-Seventh Amendment, which required that congressional salary raises take effect only at the beginning of the following session. Since politics has been professionalized, and incumbents tend to be re-elected, this doesn't amount to much anymore. But legislative salaries are still, along with government ethics laws, among the few situations where local legislators vote on matters that apply directly and specially to their personal interests.<br />
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Teachout also observes that the requirement of residency in a district was intended to protect against wealthy individuals effectively purchasing their election in districts where they did not live. That there is not a similar requirement, or even much discussion of such a requirement, for large campaign contributions and independent expenditures, even when the outsider spending money is seeking special benefits from the local government, is a sign that this value has been forgotten.<br />
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<strong>Theories of Human Nature</strong><br />
Another thing Teachout does well is look at the effects of popular philosophies on beliefs about corruption. For example, she notes that the "selfish-man theory of human nature" in the late 20th-century assumed that people will be self-interested in their behavior. This has led to a greater acceptance of conflicts of interest, at least among theorists, many politicians, and many judges, if not the public.<br />
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Teachout embraces the Madisonian belief in man's flexibility, that an individual's nature is not fixed and, therefore, can be affected or redirected by incentives and limitations, as well as by exterior (what are now called "situational") forces. This is the basis not only for government ethics programs, but also for our devotion to education.<br />
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<strong>Institutional Corruption and Dependence</strong><br />
The Founders also believed in the importance of situational forces. They "rarely attached corruption to individuals separate from their institutions: parliaments could be corrupt, or boroughs could be corrupted. The collective, and the institution itself, could become a servant of private, instead of public, ends."<br />
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Along with Lawrence Lessig, Teachout focuses on "dependence" as a central element of the 18th-century movement for independence in America. She notes that independence is "a relational word, which symbolized the rejection of a kind of relationship." And relationships are, of course, central to government ethics. Teachout focuses on the power element of relationships, but all elements contribute to putting private interests ahead of the public interest.<br />
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Central to this early concept of dependence was the goal of "freedom from a political culture where dependence was the primary mode of advancement."<br />
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But the biggest problem with Teachout's "anticorruption principle" is that she opposes its focus on "structures that discourage the worst kinds of systematic self-interest" against what she calls "the virtue principle." She ignores the government ethics approach, which creates a different sort of structure, based not only on the "bright-line rules" Teachout prefers, but also on training, advice, and disclosure. However, there are no other academics pushing for, or even writing about, this approach. At least, Teachout stands out by opposing criminal enforcement of anticorruption laws, preferring prevention through bright-line rules to discourage temptation and encourage civic virtue.<br />
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<strong>The Revolving Door and Appointments</strong><br />
Concerns about the revolving door were also present at the Constitutional Convention. Then it was referred to as the problem of "placemen," that is, of "people going into office not to represent the public but in order to get a well-paid job." The temptation of such jobs would attract the wrong people to work in the government. An important goal was to fill the new government with men of civic virtue, and to avoid creating temptations to corrode that virtue. Two ways of preventing abuse were to prohibit legislators from taking jobs that (1) were created when they were in office or (2) for which they increased the salary while in office.<br />
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There was also a great concern about the abuse of powers of appointment for personal purposes, not just because of the many problems created by cronyism and nepotism, but also because this creates personal dependence of officials on other officials, and gives the appointing officials more power. There seems to be less concern about this today. For example, I see little talk about the government and agency fiefdoms that are created in this manner.<br />
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Most important, many of the debates about the Constitution involved how much corruption would result from various structural decisions. This is the kind of ongoing government ethics discussion that is too often missing from political decision-making today.<br />
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<a href="http://www.cityethics.org/content/spring-reading-corruption-america-i">… in America I</a><br />
<a href="http://www.cityethics.org/content/spring-reading-corruption-america-ii"… in America II</a><br />
<a href="http://www.cityethics.org/content/spring-reading-corruption-america-iv"… in America IV</a><br />
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Robert Wechsler<br />
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics<br />
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