Thinking Ethics

More politics as usual

Now that the elections are over, the democrats might be forgetting their campaign promises and the voice of the voters. Ethics came in as the number two concern. We are now seeing some serious wiggling to water down ethics reform. As regards putting family members on campaign payrolls, or having kin be lobbyists, or the use of free corporate jets, or even the need to list donations from corporations... Article on the specifics in the New York Times. Why are we surpirsed ? Politicians have the lowest confidence rating on the scale. And unless they take serious measures to police themselves, their reputation is not going to improve, and we will not see quality people going into politics.

Will Congress clean up its act ?

Now that the democrats have taken over, everybody is waiting to see if they will keep to their electoral promises. High on the agenda is the matter of ethics. They will undoubtly clean up some of the main abuses, but will they go as far as putting in an independent oversight body ? I hope so. Good editorial on the subject in the New York Times.

Now's the time for courage

Now that the democrats have taken control of the US House, it would be nice to see some action on the ethics front. Corruption and integrity was the number two concern of the voters. Word on the Hill is that democrats are split on how far to go with the ethics law (article in the New York Times here). Easy to criticize the opposition - less easy to put in a proper control mechanism that might also cramp your style. It seems that the dems are moving on a law to prohibit members from accepting gifts from lobbyists, but it falls short of doing any real campaign financing reform. Not to mention the crying need for an independent ethics committee, with well respected, professional, INDEPENDENT members. Not playing partisan politics. If they had the courage to put this type of committee in, they might regain a bit of good reputation for politicians in general.

Call for action

Another editorial in the New York Times calling for action in the US House of Representatives regarding ethics. It would be great if Ms Pelosi, the new speaker of the House, could really reform the House Ethics Committee, make it bi-partisan, and give it some teeth. It would be even better if Democrats and Republicans were held to the same rules, and treated equally.

US Mid term elections

The democrats have taken over the US House of Representatives, and the two main reasons for their win are the war in Irak, and ethics. Although the US is gradually becoming more environment conscious, it seems that ethics is also cropping up a lot more in conversations and in the media. And not only to highlight the abuses. Let's hope the democrats will take the high road and implement the necessary governance rules that everyone is crying for. Interesting editorial on the subject in the Washington Post here.

Corruption rankings

Transparency International has just published the 2006 Corruption Perceptions Index, which reinforces the link between poverty and corruption. Worst offenders - Haiti, Guinea, Irak and Myanmar. Best scores (= lowest corruption) Finland, Iceland and New Zealand. more

Too little too late

The House Ethics Committee - otherwise named the US House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct - has been called a lot of names lately. The latest article in the Washington Post qualifies it as "dormant", and going into a flury of activity before the elections. It is investigating the Foley case, but will not be able to come out with a report before the elections. Whatever moved them to fulfil their role is to be welcomed, but it won't save their reputation.

I ran ethics committees by Google, and was surprised to see that most of the listings (say the first 10) are for bio-medical types of organisations. Which is normal because those researchers deal with life and people issues. Surprising to see that the US House Ethics Committee is listed in the first 12, and then something for the accounting profession. Everybody else is off the radar screen.

Bloggers help US government reform

WOW ! The Office of Management and Budget was trying to implement  some reforms to reduce wasteful spending by proposing the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act. It had bi-partisan support, but was stalled when a senator put a secret hold on it. This bill would implement an on-line searchable list of all federal government contracts larger than 25'000$. Bloggers not only got on-line, but took to the phones and called 100 senators until the culprit was discovered (he withdrew the hold). Yessss ! Transparency helps keep people honest. Now if we can only get them to disclose the hold bids... more in the Washington Post here.

Ethics scandals: democrats vs republicans

Is there a biais towards sanctionning republicans in ethics scandals ? An article by Paul Farhi in the Washington Post entitled " the redder they are, the harder they fall" claims that the consequences of ethics lapses on political careers is harder on republicans.  I suppose the press pounces on anybody in the spotlight who strays and can make news. So the discrimination is not in the telling. I personnaly don't think this biais is true, because if you look at the actions/sanctions of the House ethics committee under the democrats and under the republicans you will see that under Clinton they launched over 2000 investigations, and under Bush less than 10...

Religious freedom statistics

The US Department of State has issued the International Religious Freedom Report 2006. It is released by the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor. It attempts to classify governments on how well they respect freedom of religion. Most of the worst offenders are in Asia... full report here.