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Robert Meyers is often asked a rather impertinent question by complete strangers: Justify your existence. “It’s the first thing people ask,” admits the executive director of Miami-Dade County’s Commission on Ethics and Public Trust www.co.miami-dade.fl.us/ethics/. “It’s hard to measure effectiveness considering what we do. We’re not arresting people. But we’re talking about something much larger than putting people in jail. We’re trying to change the climate and culture within government.”
People can be forgiven a certain level of skepticism. Meyers himself — a mild-mannered professorial type who looks like he just blew in from a Midwest cornfield — presents a somewhat dubious vision of fierce guardian of the commonweal. Not when greater Miami’s lusty public servants slaver after money and power like teenage boys over the prom queen. Against these primal forces, the ethics commission — a diminutive agency of twelve employees (including five investigators), a $1.25 million budget, and a rather minor ability to penalize bad behavior — would seem about as effective as Nancy Reagan’s Just Say No campaign in the Eighties.
To put this question in context, it’s necessary to consider why the ethics commission was created in the first place. County voters approved the idea in a 1996 referendum following widespread allegations of corruption at the county, including the Port of Miami and the airport. County commissioners, however, didn’t bother to fund the thing until mid-1997, at a piddling $277,000. It was 1998 before Meyers (at that point a law professor at the University of Tennessee) was hired. Then a five-member board of volunteers with legal backgrounds (former judges, prosecutors, elected officials, and law professors) was appointed by an independent panel of civic leaders and legal scholars.
The first local commission of its kind in the state, the EC carries a mandate to enforce county ordinances covering conflicts of interest, ethical conduct, lobbyists, campaign practices, and the citizens’ bill of rights. The commission’s reach extends to both the county and local municipalities. Meyers says his agency really has three functions, the first being to simply educate officials and the citizenry about ethical guidelines through workshops and speaking engagements. The commission also renders opinions on specific situations, such as whether county employees can own Section 8 apartments, accept certain types of gifts, or seek county contracts for side businesses they run. In 2002 alone, 180 such opinions were announced. “It’s not sexy, but it’s probably the most important thing they do,” opines Paul Philip, former head of the FBI in Miami and currently the ethics guru at the school district.
Do people actually heed ethics commission opinions? Meyers admits there’s no way to know, simply because the commission doesn’t have the staff to follow up. “We hope they’re listening,” he offers. “We need to do a better job of monitoring opinions we render, especially in terms of contractors.” Sometimes the commission will also recommend changes to strengthen local ethics ordinances; it has fought a running (most often losing) battle for years trying to get meaningful checks on lobbyists, such as fee disclosure.
The third job, the one that gets the most press, is the enforcement side. This is the fun stuff, especially when an investigation involves a high-ranking bureaucrat or politician. And it’s this side of the commission that is most debatable as to its effectiveness. After all, even if investigators hit pay dirt and the commission levies the maximum penalties ($250 to $500 per violation), a typical miscreant is only out a few hundred bucks, plus the humiliation of having their arrogance, greed, and stupidity exposed in public. Some individuals can also be temporarily banned from doing business with the county. But the main benefit of ethics enforcement actions turns on the theory that shame can make model citizens out of public officials.
Contrast this with the county’s independent Office of the Inspector General, which can and regularly does root out waste, fraud, and abuses of power with an authority and vigor that offers satisfying terminations and perp walks several times a year. “A $500 fine isn’t going to kill anybody,” allows Christopher Mazzella, the county’s IG. Mazzella refuses to rise to the bait, however, when asked whether it might make sense to use the ethics commission budget to instead hire more IG investigators, given the results they’re getting. “I think they’re doing great and leave ’em alone,” he answers. “[The commission has] gone through a period of growth and there’s been a significant move forward. The county’s a big machine and it’s hard to change the course. They need sufficient resources.”
It’s possible that when the ethics commission found county Commissioner Dorrin Rolle had abused his office for personal gain, the stink raised in the media was enough for him to get a little ethics religion. (Last year the commission found that Rolle inappropriately orchestrated $20,000 worth of free county police time for a reggae concert whose promoters were giving money to Rolle’s nonprofit agency, JESCA.) Perhaps the lobbyists who’ve been chastised for not registering before bending the ear of a public official feel appropriately contrite. “I can say they are doing a fabulous job with Sylvester Lukis,” quips Lukis, a lobbyist the EC has corrected once or twice. “I was stupid. I made some quick calls without thinking. I didn’t think I was wrong, but they convinced me.”
Yet if one buys the idea that the main deterrent to bad behavior is the fear of discovery, then it’s also possible the commission should be more aggressive. In some cases the commission’s advocate will argue that an official has committed a violation, but the commission’s board will dismiss the complaint without a public hearing, or reduce the penalty to an almost meaningless level. Earlier this year, for example, ethics investigators presented a case that alleged commission Chairwoman Barbara Carey-Shuler inappropriately used her position to steer county money to a music festival and two youth programs with which she is affiliated. The ethics board, however, decided to drop the matter because she didn’t directly profit from her activities and the organizations that did are basically feel-good enterprises.
In other words, even if the means were wrong, the end was just. Meyers acknowledges it has been difficult to convince the ethics board that indirect benefits can also represent a violation of the rules. “We need to do a better job connecting the dots for them,” he says. He argues, though, that such disconnects between a volunteer board and its advocate are the exception. “We’ve got a pretty good batting average.”
Carey-Shuler isn’t so sure. In fact she says that although she considers the ethics commission to be a good idea as a guardian of the public trust, she’s not sure what this one has actually accomplished. “I’ve outreached to them, but I have no idea because they haven’t told me,” she notes. “I have a closer relationship with the inspector general in that he meets with me and sends me reports.” Carey-Shuler also thinks the ethics commission seems to be somewhat selective in the people it targets for investigation. “I’ve seen things in the paper I think they should investigate and they don’t touch it, yet they go after other people,” she grumbles.
There are those who would argue that Meyers and his merry band of ethics enforcers have made a difference. County Commissioner Jimmy Morales, an early supporter, thinks the EC has given county employees a place to turn for ethics advice as well as awakening the electorate to the notion that ethical behavior should be a normal government practice. “The ethics commission can’t change human nature, but I think a lot of the blatant behavior has been driven below ground,” he speculates. Business executive Roger Carlton, who recently chaired an ethics committee at the Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce (he’s also a member of the school district’s fledgling ethics advisory committee), agrees the commission has had an effect. “The downhill run of our ethical culture has been reversed,” he asserts. “The ethics commission, in conjunction with the inspector general and a variety of ordinances and policies put in place by the county — all of these collectively have turned the tide.”
Meyers acknowledges that the ethics commission has a long way to go before its goals are met. He’s asking for another $300,000 in the next budget cycle to pay for two more investigators and another outreach employee. “We could be more aggressive with more investigators,” he adds. “And we need the tools, such as tougher sanctions. Restitution, for example. A lot of these acts are economic in nature and it would be more effective if you could go after these people to repay the money they made from violating the rules.” A county commission committee has approved this idea, but it still must pass muster with the full commission.
In general Meyers justifies his existence as being one part of a larger battle that can only be won incrementally, and on many fronts. “Some will argue we’ve not done enough, others that we’ve done too much,” he says. “We’re just one piece of the puzzle. We are trying to create a network of people who expect and demand good government. Let’s face it, we’ve got 2.5 million residents and a lot of ground to cover.”
