LOS ANGELES TIMES INTERVIEW : Benjamin Bycel : The Herculean Task of Monitoring Ethics in City Politics

On April 20, Los Angeles voters will cast their ballots in the first city election to feature public matching funds for political campaigns. New limits on campaign contributions will also be in force. Both changes are part of a broad campaign-reform package instituted in 1990, when voters approved Charter Amendment H. That amendment created the city’s first Ethics Commission, a five-member board with a small staff charged with enforcing the election code, doling out public matching funds to candidates, regulating the behavior of city officials and investigating the myriad ways government servants can go astray--everything from illegal campaign contributions to influence peddling and misuse of city equipment.

Since its inception, the City Ethics Commission has been a magnet for criticism. Two years ago, acting on a tip that city workers were engaged in political activities, investigators raided the offices of City Attorney James K. Hahn, seizing records and computers. The district attorney at the time, Ira Reiner, later dropped the investigation, citing lack of evidence. Hahn then issued a stinging attack against the commission and its director, Benjamin Bycel.

Bycel, 50, is an attorney who once worked as a press aide to San Francisco Mayor George Moscone. As the city’s ethics czar, he has had to work out the details of the public-financing plan, which draws on an $8-million fund to match privately raised dollars with public money. He’s also had to educate officials and candidates about the rules of running for and holding office, while simultaneously attempting to root out violators. Among the investigations he has initiated are several targeting the laundering of political contributions. The Ethics Commission, working with the state Fair Political Practices Commission, has alleged that former City Councilman Art Snyder was involved in a complex scheme to subvert campaign donation limits by recruiting donors and then reimbursing them for their contributions, thus concealing the amounts of special-interest money flowing into a campaign.

Critics of Bycel--and there are many--charge he is overzealous, vindictive and a publicity hound. The ethics chief defends his actions with the belief that when voters created the commission, they wanted a watchdog and not a lap dog. Yet he is surprisingly candid about the pitfalls of being in charge of what he sees as a great social experiment--the reform of city government in Los Angeles.

* Question: What do you say to someone who says, “Wait a minute, there’s $8 million sitting in the city coffers, and we need all sorts of services--why are we spending it on politicians?”

Answer: It’s a great question and I think if you approach the average citizen and say, “Hey, Joe, do you want to give money so politicians can go run again?”, the answer has to be no. But if you ask the question, “Do you want to break the flow of money--that chain between the special interests and the politician--so that the politician doesn’t have to dial for dollars all the time and can get public funds so that he or she can be free of the special interests?”, then I think they will say that it is probably worth it.

I’ve defended public financing for political campaigns as the best single thing we can do to change the political makeup. I don’t know if it’s going to work entirely for Los Angeles, but in New York City, where they have had public financing for some time, it’s done three things. It’s meant more minorities on the City Council, it’s brought more women in and it’s brought in more Republicans, who are a minority in New York City. I think that it could do the same in Los Angeles.

But we are getting beat over the head with it every day in the City Council. They’re saying we need cops on the corner and we need sewers cleaned, and we are just going to throw this money away. What they really mean is that we are going to throw it away on the challengers. It is going to help the challengers. The fact is that we have the best Congress, the best Senate and the best City Council that money can buy--and it is a fiction to think anything else.

Q: Let’s suppose that the mayor’s race comes down to a contest between Richard Riordan and Michael Woo, the two candidates with the largest war chests. It’s conceivable that the new public financing plan will have made absolutely no difference in that race. What would you say to people who protest that we’ve spent a lot of public money, and nothing has changed?

A: I think that if the arms race of dollars determines who wins this election, and that only the candidates who raise and spend the most money are the competitors, then there should be serious questions asked about public financing.

But it seems to me that on social, cultural and political reform in society, we have no toleration for experiment. If we spend a million dollars on a rocket and it goes two feet in the air, falls over and blows up, immediately the scientists say it was an O-ring that didn’t work; just give us another million and we will make it go next time. We have great tolerance for that--put the money back in science and learn from our mistakes. But if you try to change the basic political, social structure, and it doesn’t work--every single time and right away--people say, “Forget it, it was a failure.”

My sense is that we have to experiment with these things and see if they make a difference. But you have a right to say, “All right, Bycel, you advocated that. Did it work or didn’t it?” We plan to have a busy summer evaluating everything that happened in the campaigns, and we’ll report it as we see it.

Q: The Ethics Commission has some fairly broad investigatory powers. How aggressive should the commission be, and how should it function when it comes to enforcing the law and rooting out ethics violations by public officials?

A: I think that those who drafted the law that created the Ethics Commission, and the voters who approved its creation, envisioned a very tough and aggressive commission. There are those who believe everybody in government is a crook. On the other end of the spectrum are those, like strong lobbyists, who want us to do nothing. To keep all this in equilibrium, we have a slogan: This is not a short race; it’s a marathon.

Here’s the problem. Municipal politics has never had a referee. They never had somebody with the stripes and the whistle. So politicians take our actions very personally. They often think our motives are what they would do if they had the power. We are not vindictive, we’re not partisan, and we have no particular interest in disrupting an activity that we all like--politics. But there are rules, and the rules have to be followed. So we have almost zero toleration for intentional abuse of the law.

Let me also make this point. An agency like ours can never afford to be self-righteous. That’s why we have never dealt with minutiae. We are not trying to determine who bought whom a cup of coffee, and whether that’s a violation. We try to focus on the large issues, on changing behavior, and we would always much rather educate than prosecute. But we still plan to be very tough when people violate the law.

Q: One thing the commission has investigated has to do with the skirting of campaign finance laws by laundering donations to politicians. How big a problem is money-laundering in the politics of Los Angeles?

A: It’s a very significant, if not massive, problem. Whether it’s 10% or 20% of all the money raised in the last five or six years, I’m not sure. But we are talking about hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars. It’s not an isolated incident--it’s a systematic, organized conspiracy to subvert the campaign-finance laws. Those who are doing it know it’s wrong, they know we are breathing down their necks. It’s just a matter of time until we complete these investigations and make the proper charges.

We want it to stop. It completely distorts the notion that if an individual makes a contribution, it means something, when a company can contribute hundreds of thousands of dollars and hide that contribution through a whole series of intermediaries.

Q: The Ethics Commission has been in business for two years, but there have been no civil or criminal prosecutions so far. Does that bother you?

A: No. I am one of the most impatient people in the world, and it bothered me until I understood the system. Investigations take so long. Looking at records takes a long time. It’s strange for a liberal like me, a guy who has always been a defense counsel, to be on the prosecutorial side. But I have a great appreciation now for what prosecutors go through. Investigations take a long time--especially if you are going to do them right.

Q: A number of candidates for city office have complained that the Ethics Commission’s rules are too complicated, and make complying difficult. How do you respond to those complaints?

A: We have seminars for candidates in which we explain the rules. Just the other day, a candidate was complaining that it was all too difficult, and I had to ask him how he expects to run the business of the city as a council person if he can’t do this. Yes, it’s difficult, but they voluntarily chose to do it. They are going to be presiding over a budget of billions of dollars. I don’t have a lot of personal empathy with someone who thinks abiding by the rules is too difficult.

Q: What do you say to the citizens of Los Angeles to persuade them that you are being effective, their money is being well-spent and they will get better government because of the Ethics Commission?

A: It’s a hard sell right now. John Q. Public is worried about getting mugged, about putting food on the table, about good schools and proper housing. The public is not particularly interested in the concept of ethics in government. It’s unrealistic to think that’s what’s being talked about in households throughout Los Angeles. But if I could go to their house, I could explain to them that the root of many of the problems, at all levels, is the way we run our political system, and the way we finance it.

The real answer will also depend on the extent to which elected officials recognize that the Ethics Commission must be an independent watchdog. At this point, I am not confidant that most of them are committed to fundamental ethics reform.

Q: Give me your definition of ethics in government--what does that mean?

A: It’s so simple. We call it the smell test. We ask every civil servant and every elected official to ask themselves, “Am I acting in the interest of the public, or in my own interest?” The tests are not complex and one does not need a Ph.D.. from Harvard in comparative ethics to understand how to behave. Small children understand this. Am I acting in the public interest or in my private interest? It’s that simple.

There are some who believe that you can’t teach ethics. I don’t particularly buy that. A lot of learning has gone on in the last two years. We’ve been asked a ton of questions, which we always kept confidential, and people keep coming to us, because they recognize they need some help.

I know it sounds a little flaky to say, “But we raise consciousness.” I think if you understand the rules and realize the consequences of doing the wrong thing are severe, public and swift, then even if your inclination was to do the wrong thing, you will check yourself.

Q: What was your original motivation for taking this job?

A: I knew that if we could make an Ethics Commission work here in Los Angeles, there would be a chance to make it work other places. If this attempt to restore people’s faith in government--to make them believe that there really are people downtown who care about them and are working in the greater public interest. If we can get that feeling back, then this society has got a chance. If we don’t, then I think we are in for some very hard times.