Toughening Up City’s Ethics Laws : Positive approach will help council get framework on the table to make needed changes

We’d like to see something a little different regarding the effort to strengthen Los Angeles’ ethics and anti-corruption laws. To be blunt, there ought to be far more “how we can” reports and far fewer refrains of “why we cannot.”

Los Angeles City Councilman Mike Feuer for example, campaigned on a pledge to toughen ethics laws, and he is trying to deliver. Last month, Feuer and council colleague Joel Wachs proposed barring ethics laws violators from doing further business with the city. Later, in a proposal seconded by Councilwoman Jackie Goldberg, Feuer sought to prohibit lobbyists from raising money for the accounts used by council members to pay expenses related to their duties as elected officials.

Last year, the city’s ethics laws underwent their first comprehensive revision and expansion in 30 years. But those laws are still not entirely specific when it comes to nailing down restraints on lobbyists who raise money for officeholders.

Despite the complexity of this subject, we would like to see some movement in the right direction. For example, the city’s Ethics Commission says that it sought a provision in the 1994 ordinance that is similar to Feuer’s plan on contribution. It was dropped during council deliberations.

Moreover, the City Council didn’t exactly set the proper tone in these matters when it began the year by waiving $200,000 in city fees for a firm that had been fined $200,000 less than a year earlier for laundering campaign funds.

The city attorney’s office has concerns about the Feuer/Wachs proposal on ethics law violators and fund-raisers for officeholder accounts? Fine. Let’s address the concerns, fine-tune the proposal, and get a framework on the table that can be voted upon. This time, the concerns ought not consign the effort to the kind of legislative back burner where nothing ever burns.