WASHINGTON — Academics are never more useful than when they are taking on conventional wisdom and tearing it apart. That is exactly what G. Calvin Mackenzie, a professor of government at Colby College in Maine, has done in a delightful new paperback titled "Scandal Proof: Do Ethics Laws Make Government Ethical?"
Published by Brookings, the small volume subjects the whole issue of ethics in government — a topic almost guaranteed to produce platitude and high-minded sentiment — to critical, even skeptical scrutiny.
With the help of Brookings Institution research analyst Michael Hafken, Mackenzie peels back the geological layers of laws and regulations under which federal employees — especially presidential appointees — are expected to function. Through most of our history, people were vetted for even the topmost positions in the bureaucracy by a political process — clearance by the White House and confirmation by the Senate.
The process began to change, he says, when President Eisenhower instituted FBI background checks for people going into national security posts. Since then, almost every president has added to the complex web of forms that must be filled out, disclosures that must be made, investigations completed and regulations mastered before anyone can occupy a position of trust in the government.
The motive, as Mackenzie says, is "the standard presidential leapfrog of trying to appear above reproach by imposing higher standards than one’s predecessors."
Congress has added its own layers of complexity, responding to each new scandal with a legislative remedy — often, as was the case after Watergate, of dubious relevance to the crimes that had been committed.
The net result of all this is really mind-boggling. I did not know, for example, that each year 280,000 federal employees have to file personal financial disclosure forms. The paperwork and investigations now routine are so cumbersome, Mackenzie says, that "you can bicycle across the country, build a boat or have a baby in less time than it takes a new president to get his average appointee into office."
To what end? In five years, only 405 individual financial disclosure forms were ever inspected by any member of the public. There were few conflict-of-interest situations involving public employees before this half-century regulatory binge, and there are few now. There is "little evidence that government integrity is greater today" and, sadly, abundant polling that shows a sharp decline in public trust in government.
The costs of this binge are high. Start with the hours and dollars spent filling out these forms and conducting these background investigations. Add in the reluctance — or outright refusal — of many talented private-sector people to endure the humiliation of turning their lives inside out in order to work for their government.
Mackenzie also notes that ethics regulations have become a favorite tool "for attacking, harassing, embarrassing and weakening incumbent officeholders."
And he makes one other telling point. Because the whole premise of this process is the suspicion of individual dishonesty, when an ethics violation does occur, the response is to pillory, prosecute or purge the individual miscreant. Those in charge — ultimately, the president — disavow the culprit but typically are not held responsible for the misjudgment that led to his or her appointment. Thus, Mackenzie says, this legalistic approach to ethics actually has weakened the political accountability, enforced by elections, on which the Founders believed the good behavior of government officials depended.
His recommendations are as bracing as his analysis. Keep enunciating a tough code of conduct for government employees and keep training new employees in those standards. But scrap the public financial disclosure forms for all but the highest presidential appointees and end all financial disclosure for career bureaucrats. Simplify those forms, too, so people merely list their significant holdings, rather than give their dollar value. In other words, provide a zone of privacy such as the rest of us enjoy.
And cut way back on FBI investigations. Limit them to people with national security duties and tell the agents not to ask about medical or marital history, personal reputation or character. Let those making the appointments be the judges of character — and let them take political responsibility for their errors.
This is radical stuff, but it makes sense. I have only one serious disagreement with Mackenzie. When it comes to political campaign finance, he wants more and tighter regulations, seeming to think that the remedies that he has exposed as failures in government ethics can be roaring successes in this related field.
But cheers for his having told us that the emperor of government ethics regulation has no clothes.
David Broder can be reached at The Washington Post Writers Group, 1150 15th St. NW, Washington, DC 20071-9200.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
