Ethics Panel Proposes Sweeping City Reforms

After a six-month study, Los Angeles’ commission on ethics in government proposed a package of sweeping reforms on Monday that would outlaw some of the very practices that ignited Mayor Tom Bradley’s conflict-of-interest scandal earlier this year.

The commission, appointed by Bradley the day after his narrow election to an unprecedented fifth term in office, set a February deadline for City Council adoption of the proposal.

If the council does not act, the ethics commission will take its case directly to the voters of Los Angeles through a ballot initiative, said commission Chairman Geoffrey Cowan.

The commissioners have formed a “watch committee” of prominent civic, business and labor leaders to ensure that the reforms--touted as the “the cleanest, clearest and toughest ethics law in the country”--are enacted even if the City Council remains bogged down in its own effort to write and adopt a new code of ethics.

Bradley, still facing a federal grand jury investigation of his financial dealings, said at an impromptu press conference that he would do “everything within my power” to secure passage of the commission’s proposals.

Among the recommendations made by the Commission to Draft an Ethics Code for Los Angeles City Government is a procedure to appoint a special prosecutor for politically sensitive cases, such as the Bradley investigation.

Other reforms include establishment of an independent ethics agency similar to the state Fair Political Practices Commission, a ban on outside employment, gifts and honorariums for elected officials, a toughening of financial disclosure regulations, a cap on campaign spending and partial public financing of city political campaigns. In addition, the commission proposed that former city officials wait at least a year before returning to City Hall as lobbyists.

Penalties would range from criminal misdemeanor charges to civil fines of up to three times the amount of the financial value of the transgression. If the city attorney balks at filing actions against elected officials suspected of unethical behavior, the proposed code allows citizens to file lawsuits as “private attorneys general.”

The proposed code, contained in a 70-page report, won unanimous approval from Bradley’s seven-member commission: Cowan, Rabbi Allen Freehling, Archbishop Roger Mahony, Los Angeles County Bar Assn. President Margaret Morrow, retired Superior Court Judge Delbert Wong and attorneys Gilbert Ray and Antonia Hernandez.

“We don’t expect this report to collect dust,” said Ray. “We expect action” by the City Council.

Among the 19 members of the “watch committee” formed to lobby for adoption of the ethics proposals are Warren Christopher, chairman of the law firm of O’Melveny & Myers; Barry Diller, chairman of Fox Inc.; Bill Robertson, chief of the Los Angeles County AFL-CIO, and John Mack, president of the Urban League.

The City Council, however, appears stalled in its own six-month effort to legislate ethics at City Hall.

Members of the council’s ad hoc committee on ethics are at odds over key ethical questions, such as limits on lobbying by city officials upon their return to private life. The City Council committee has also completely avoided the issue of campaign financing.

Outside Employment

The council also appears reluctant to ban outside employment for elected officials--the very practice that touched off the cry for a new ethics code earlier this year when it was revealed that Bradley served as a paid adviser to Far East National Bank while the institution did business with the city.

Councilman Michael Woo, chairman of the City Council committee, said he is confident that an ethics reform package will be adopted by February--but it may not be exactly what the mayor’s commission has proposed.

Councilwoman Ruth Galanter said she is concerned that the commission’s proposal is so insulting to ethical people that they would avoid government service.

“The way to make government ethical is to attract the good people,” Galanter said. “Anybody who would be ethical in office would be dissuaded from running because it’s insulting. . . . There’s a presumption that you must be dishonest.”

However, Cowan, former chairman of California Common Cause, argued: “The best way to attract good people to government is to assure them that the government will be highly ethical, that they will be working for an institution that is worthy of public respect.”

Council President John Ferraro said he favors a cautious approach to accepting the commission’s proposals. “The very thoroughness of the (commission’s) report and recommendations requires the same depth of consideration by the mayor and the council.”

But Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky said he supports a tough new set of laws and, on a first reading, likes what he sees in the commission’s proposals. Yaroslavsky said he favors the commission’s all-out ban on outside employment, rather than a watered-down version being contemplated by the council’s ethics committee.

“There’s a stench coming out of City Hall that is choking public confidence. . . . It’s the decomposition of ethical standards,” he said.

Yaroslavsky said the commission report is the only complete proposal yet put on the table, and he predicted that any other “will be dead on arrival.”

Bradley said he expects the council to tinker with the panel’s proposals, “but the essence of it ought to remain.”

“Taking it piecemeal . . . would be the biggest mistake of all,” he said.

Rabbi Freehling said, “It is our strong and unanimous recommendation that these proposals be adopted in their entirety. If certain suggestions of ours fail to (be adopted), then Los Angeles voters will have the responsibility of codifying them by means of a ballot initiative.”

Though Bradley had earlier vowed to live by the letter of the commission’s findings--and fired off a letter to council members on Monday urging them to adopt the commission’s proposals--the mayor demurred when asked if he would voluntarily abide by the panel’s suggested restrictions.

“I want those reports to be considered by the full council and to have all of us act in concert,” he said.

Bradley bridled when asked whether his controversial financial dealings, which spawned calls for ethics reform in the city, would have been prohibited had the report’s findings been enacted years ago.

“Let’s not talk about history,” he said.

The mayor pointed out that “there were no such standards, no such provisions” when he accepted money from Valley Federal Savings & Loan Assn. as a director and from Far East National Bank as an adviser.

After a phone call from Bradley in March, City Treasurer Leonard Rittenberg reinstated a $1-million city deposit with Far East and added $1 million more. Bradley and Rittenberg have said that the mayor exerted no pressure. In 1988, Bradley was paid $18,000 by Far East--money that he later returned.

In a report in September, City Atty. James K. Hahn said he found insufficient evidence to prosecute Bradley for criminal conflict of interest, but he criticized the mayor’s ethical conduct and sued him for failure to disclose some of his personal financial investments.

A federal grand jury is currently investigating Bradley and his relationship with several financial institutions, including Far East.

Times staff writers Cathleen Decker and Jane Fritsch contributed to this story.

PROPOSED ETHICS REFORMS

Expanded financial disclosure requirements for elected officials and other senior city officials, including information about their home financing.

A ban on outside employment, honorariums and gifts.

A one-year ban on lobbying by former elected officials.

Limits on campaign spending and partial public funding for candidates.

An independent ethics commission modeled after the State Fair Political Practices Commission.

Mandatory training courses on ethics for all city employees, lobbyists and candidates for office.

Expanded enforcement powers for the city attorney and a process for appointing special prosecutors in cases involving elected officials.