Ethics Creativity
A favorite ploy in local government ethics is for a council to vote for
an ethics code that includes an ethics commission, and then either not
actually appoint members to the commission or, when they resign, not
fill their seats, so that there is, effectively, no enforcement
mechanism.<br>
<br>
But a legislative body cannot do this when it self-enforces. It has to be more creative. The
Tennessee House has just that sort of creativity. According to <a href="http://www.newschannel5.com/Global/story.asp?S=9898104" target="”_blank”">an
article</a> on WTVF-TV's website, in 2005, in the midst of the state's big pay-to-play scandal, the Tennessee House passed <a href="http://wtvf.images.worldnow.com/images/incoming/Investigates/HouseEthic…; target="”_blank”">an
ethics code</a> (all of five pages long), establishing an ethics
committee. The creative part is that the
ethics code must be readopted
for each session, or it is nonoperative. So four years later, there is
still an ethics committee, but there is no operative code.<br>
<br>
The article contains an update, which says that the house ethics
committee chair doesn't know why the code was not readopted, but he'll
be on it right away. Let's give our thanks, once again, to the press.<br>