Toothless federal government ethics

The New York Times writes:

As House ethics investigators were examining four cases this fall detailing a sweeping array of improper financial conduct by lawmakers, they ran into an obstacle: Two of the lawmakers under scrutiny refused to meet with them or provide documents.

The investigators were not too surprised. Over the past decade, fewer and fewer House members have been willing to cooperate with congressional investigations, a development that ethics experts warn could reduce accountability for misdeeds and erode trust in the institution of Congress.

Omar Ashmawy, the staff director of the Office of Congressional Ethics, an independent entity that reviews allegations against House members and refers misconduct cases to the House Ethics Committee, acknowledged the growing resistance to his office’s work, but said he was undeterred: “It has never prevented us from being able to gather the facts and determine what happened and whether or not the subject was culpable.”

Still, the trend is unmistakable.

In 2009 and 2010 — the first Congress scrutinized by the Office of Congressional Ethics, which was created in 2008 — three lawmakers refused to cooperate with the office’s 68 investigations, a noncooperation rate of just 4 percent.

This year, six out of 14 House lawmakers under investigation have refused to participate — a rate of 43 percent, the highest on record.  

There is no requirement that lawmakers cooperate with the Office of Congressional Ethics, but legislators who do so often are able to resolve what had appeared to be violations of ethics rules.

The fact that many will no longer even meet with ethics investigators reflects a troubling trend in American politics in which improper behavior is no longer a political liability, ethics experts say.

Maybe ethics investigators can gather facts to determine what happened as is claimed, or maybe they can't. How can they know what is being withheld from them? Given the open hostility of both Democrats and Republicans to ethical concerns, it seems reasonable to think that Congress is becoming increasingly corrupt and autocratic. 

One outside ethics expert commented: “What people used to think was a career-ending mistake has been proven to not be a career-ending mistake. Many people have noticed a shift in ethical norms. It used to be the case that when a member violated the ethics rules, if not a fine, there would be a fairly stiff political price to pay. I worry that has gone away.”

Indeed, concern for ethics has gone away. That, along with unwarranted opacity, is one of the key hallmarks of a corrupt government.