Getting serious about ethics reform

This August, with much pomp and circumstance, Mayor John Street proudly announced the revival of the old ethics board to oversee city government in light of the pay-to-play scandal, in which Ronald White, a fund-raiser for Street, and Corey Kemp, a former city treasurer, have been accused of willfully trading public contracts for money and political contributions and favors. Obviously, Street needed to take action to control the political damage of these accusations. Hence, he declared, "As mayor, I will not tolerate any such abuse of the public trust. The public must have faith in the integrity of their government."

I agree with Street's statement; however, I don't think that he can adequately fulfill it. I doubt that the new ethics board will be any more useful than a piece of wood with the word "ethics" scrawled on it, both because of its flawed structure and because of Street's lack of credibility as a responsible, ethical politician.

First of all, the new ethics board is just as structurally flawed as the old one. The new board is composed of Chairwoman Charisse Lillie, former City Councilman and Street ally Daniel McElhatton, Rev. James Allen, Superior Senior Judge Phyllis Beck and City Solicitor Pedro Ramos. Ramos is also a partner at Ballard Spahr, a law firm with close ties to City Hall.

I do not doubt that these are all highly moral, ethical people, but do you notice anything in common? They are mostly city insiders or Street allies, or both. Yet this is precisely the problem that the city is trying to rid itself of -- the current ingrained City Hall culture of favoritism, pay-to-play and business as usual. Hence, we cannot expect this ethics board to be any different from the previous one, which had a similar composition. All that this spells out is politics as usual; nothing will change, and certainly my faith in Philadelphia City Hall will not be restored.

Here's an alternative: How about instead of choosing insiders and allies, Mayor Street, you choose some qualified candidates from an outside organization with which you have no connection? How about choosing a Penn professor from the Legal Studies Department -- an expert on corporate responsibility and ethics -- to head your ethics board? Temple and Villanova, as well as other universities and government watch groups, would also make fertile grounds for ethics board members. People always complain that governments should be run as efficiently as businesses. But if businesses count on outside auditors from accounting firms to examine their books, why should city government -- especially Philadelphia -- count on itself to monitor itself? This, precisely, is the problem, and hence Mayor Street's well-intentioned ethics board lacks teeth.

There is an additional problem, however. There's a saying in the South that a fish stinks from the head down. Therefore, even though I give Mayor Street the benefit of the doubt that he really did not know what White and Kemp were up to, I still fault him for being an irresponsible politician. As mayor, you ought to know what your subordinates -- and especially your chief fund-raiser -- are up to, and that they are behaving ethically. Simply claiming no knowledge of such a massive agency problem does not mean that you are not at fault for not having kept closer watch over your subordinates. A more responsible, vigilant politician would have kept tighter surveillance over his or her subordinates and not have let this alleged crime occur. Thus, in the end, you yourself are also tainted, in the eyes of the public, and are in no credible position to advocate any meaningful ethical reform.

A perfect example of this comes from my home state of Illinois, where former Gov. George Ryan pleaded no knowledge of his subordinates' roles in the licenses-for-bribes scandal that took place while he was the Illinois secretary of state, responsible for overseeing state drivers' license facilities. The crime took place under his watch; hence, he ought to have known about it. When the scandal was made public -- after Ryan had won the governorship, of course -- the taint of it reached him, and suffocated him. Ryan's promises of ethics reform fell on deaf ears. George Ryan was a one-term governor.

A hundred years ago, Lincoln Steffens wrote that Philadelphia is "corrupt and contented." I am not content, and nor should you be. Unless Street is indeed serious about restoring our trust in city government, creates a real board of ethics to oversee city government and does some serious house-cleaning, he might as well resign.

Cezary Podkul is a junior Management and Philosophy major in Wharton and the College from Chicago, Ill. Cezary Salad appears on Mondays.

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