Sending the Wrong Message : Corporate party for Ron Brown is at odds with Clinton’s ethics aspirations

A group of major corporations that have joined together as “Friends of Ron Brown” will be footing the bill for a gala testimonial at Washington’s Kennedy Center next Sunday for the man Bill Clinton wants as his secretary of commerce. The planned party may not be the biggest or most lavish among the many scheduled for inaugural week, but certainly it will rank as among the most misguided.

To put it bluntly, it looks bad, and it is bad when the commerce-secretary designate allows himself to be feted by a number of large companies whose activities could well be affected by the decisions he will soon be required to make. It looks especially bad when the honoree is the choice of a President-elect who got a lot of political mileage out of denouncing the sometimes too-cozy relationships that existed under previous administrations between public officeholders and the private sector of the economy. Clinton has promised that members of his Administration will be held to the most rigorous ethical standards ever imposed in public life. That may be the goal, but the intention has already been vitiated by next Sunday’s event.

Brown, properly, is said to have asked Clinton’s advisers whether the gala--which apparently was planned before he was nominated to the Cabinet post--should be canceled. The advisers are said to have told him that they could see nothing illegal or unethical about the event. Illegal, no. But improper, yes, it is beyond any question, a fact that should have been immediately apparent to those whose counsel Brown sought.

Brown is already a focus of special scrutiny on potential conflicts of interest because of the lucrative lobbying work he has done for a substantial number of American and foreign clients. At his confirmation hearings he promised that these past associations wouldn’t influence his future decisions. Now comes the big business-sponsored party, which looks virtually indistinguishable from some of the looser ethics-in-government practices of the recent past. Clearly and without any second thoughts or regrets, this is a party that should have been called off the moment Brown was nominated to head the Commerce Department.