August 18, 2008

Dear Friends:

Many thanks to so many of you who responded to my first email last month.  I certainly appreciate all the encouragement and have enjoyed the interesting suggestions and comments.  Keep those responses coming!

TIME FOR REFORM

After months of disclosures of unethical and illegal activity at the local, state and federal level, can anybody seriously question the need for thorough reforms in the public arena?

At our last meeting, my fellow commissioners agreed to my request to undertake a wide-ranging review of the ethical and political challenges facing county government.  I hope the result will be substantive actions that will make our government more open and transparent.

We will review our existing Code of Ethics and have directed staff to present recommendations and options.  I requested reports in four main areas:

1.  whether to reimpose a prior ban on political activity by seven key county employees and, if so, whether to expand the number of employees covered by the ban,

2.  to review county compliance with state-mandated financial disclosure requirements, and whether to expand the number of employees and members of boards and commissions covered by the financial disclosure,

3.  how to implement the recommendations of the December 2007 county task force that would limit campaign contributions to county candidates from vendors who have no-bid county contracts, and

4.  how to enforce these proposed ethical standards and requirements, whether by an Inspector General, ethics compliance officer or some other mechanism.

I helped create our Code of Ethics in the mid 1990s, and we included a ban on political activity for seven top employees with legal and financial decision-making authority.  The ban was repealed by Mike Marino and Jim Matthews in 2000, over the objections of Ruth Damsker.  Ruth and I advocated to restore the ban during the last campaign, and the GOP team of Matthews and Castor took no position.  Now, Bruce Castor would like to reinstate the ban, to his credit.  I would like to extend it to cover other key employees with discretionary power, such as assistant district attorneys and assistant county solicitors.

Interestingly, D.A. Risa Furman just announced the creation of a public corruption unit in her office and made a point of saying that the assistant D.A. she placed in charge is one of the most apolitical prosecutors in the office.  That begs the question of why aren't all of her prosecutors apolitical.  The U.S. Attorneys offices throughout the country as well as the Philadelphia DA's office and many others have complete bans on political activity by those that possess prosecutorial power.  Several Montgomery County assistant DA's are or have actually run for public office while serving as a prosecutor, creating tremendous conflicts between their political activity and fundraising and their public duties.  It is time for some changes!

REFORM IN HARRISBURG

There is no doubt that Bonusgate represents a tremendous and disappointing failure in ethical behavior by the legislative leadership in Harrisburg - apparently in all four caucuses.  We don't know what further indictments may occur or what the result of the prosecutions will be.  We can be sure that the House Democrats - all of them - will be hammered in the fall campaign regardless of their individual involvement or knowledge.  Certainly, changes in the leadership must occur.  Most importantly, the rank and file caucus members must lead the charge and insist on caucus leaders who live up to high ethical standards.  Our House Democratic challengers in Montgomery County are facing tough questions and skepticism from the voters on the campaign trail over Bonusgate.  We owe those candidates better.  It is time for some changes in Harrisburg, too.

Please keep in touch and let me know what you think.


Sincerely,