Baker’s Double-Dipping as White House Pol Would Be Unethical Anywhere Else : Elections: As city candidates know, it’s illegal to run a campaign on the public payroll.

While we don’t set his working hours or evaluate his job performance, White House Chief of Staff Jim Baker still works for you and me.

As his prestigious new title indicates, the soon-to-be former secretary of state is still a full-time government employee subject to the prohibition of doing campaign work on public time. And yet the headlines read: “Baker to Head White House Staff and Guide Bush’s Campaign.”

At a minimum, it is ethically wrong to have Baker and his team of top assistants running the campaign from the White House while being paid by the taxpayers.

If the mayor of Los Angeles boldly announced that he was bringing in his former campaign manager to run his office while guiding his reelection campaign, the City Ethics Commission would step in.

City and state laws, similar to federal statutes, bar any elected official from using government employees to do campaign work, let alone direct their campaigns while on government time. Moreover, city employees are banned from using city offices, stationery, vehicles and equipment for campaign purposes.

Months ago, the Los Angeles Ethics Commission made it clear to all incumbents who may run for any office that mixing an election campaign with government pay is as forbidden as drinking and driving.

The President’s own designated ethics cop, C. Boyden Gray, arrived at the same conclusion less than a year ago when he banned the use of White House money or equipment for political activity.

“The simplest rule to follow,” Gray wrote to the White House staff, “is the common sense instruction that anything that is obviously campaign related should not be done, whether or not one could ‘legally’ justify doing it here.”

But then situational ethics took over, as they do so often in politics. After reconsideration, Gray and Justice Department attorneys argued that since other chiefs of staff had engaged in campaign activity, Baker and his crew could do political work while on the public payroll.

A Bush campaign official told the media that the whole issue was moot anyway, because whatever it may look like, Baker will not be running the campaign and will not be even “intimately” involved.

While Baker may not run the minute-by-minute operation, it is hard to believe, especially after the President’s own words, that Baker will not direct the overall campaign from the White House.

In Los Angeles, as we approach the highly contested 1993 races for mayor and City Council, taxpayers can rest assured that the City Ethics Commission will not allow a similar situation to happen here.

And we should expect no less in Washington. President Bush can have Jim Baker either as his chief of staff on our dime or his campaign manager on his own.