The city’s conscience

Los Angeles voters established the city’s Ethics Commission in 1990 to help sever the corrupting link between City Hall decision making and special-interest money. That link still isn’t severed and may never be, but the commission often moves the city in the right direction by repelling the political establishment’s constant efforts to keep the money and favors flowing.

At its best, the five-member panel uncovers money laundering, enforces laws requiring candidates to report their donations, polices lobbyist disclosure and recommends laws to open up the often-closed business of political fundraising, campaigning, contracting and lawmaking.

At its worst, it caters to the interests of the very industry it is supposed to patrol, identifying with candidates -- and their angst over whether a fine for sloppy record keeping will result in bad press -- rather than the public it is supposed to represent.

The Ethics Commission is no place for political players. It’s a quasi-judicial body responsible for nothing less than protecting the integrity of elections and government in Los Angeles. That’s something Los Angeles’ elected officials should keep in mind in the coming days as they make some important decisions about who will sit on the panel.

The City Council on Tuesday will consider council President Eric Garcetti’s appointment of attorney Michael Camunez to succeed Garcetti’s father. Camunez is a highly regarded securities and business litigator. His perspective and ability could serve the city well. His law firm is a major force in Los Angeles and has won contracts to represent the city in court -- a fact that is not by itself disqualifying for this position but draws attention to the inherent difficulty in keeping distance between the commission and the world it is meant to scrutinize.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is soon to name a replacement for the capable Robert Saltzman, who is moving to the Police Commission. In this appointment too, the challenge is to select a person not entangled in the political world but with enough focus on government and politics to devote himself to the panel’s work.

The new Ethics Commission members should be uninterested in ingratiating themselves with officeholders, political lawyers, lobbyists or special interests. They must be people without grandiose notions of high-profile muckraking but with enough sense of self to avoid unwitting capture -- by the people who appoint them, by the political industry, by the well-intentioned reform lobby, by the commission’s own capable and driven staff.

The council and the mayor must, in short, transcend themselves and their own interests when they appoint and confirm new members. The commissioners’ job will be to keep elected officials honest, not to run interference for them.

Council members considering ethics panel appointees often take the opportunity to complain that politicians are misunderstood, or to intone that ethics live in the heart of the individual rather than in campaign laws, or to assert that they have discovered a new approach to reform. All too often, they miss the point: Voters correctly opted for rules and for enforcement.

Members of other Los Angeles city commissions report to the mayor and serve at his pleasure. Not this one. Each of the five members is appointed by a different city official and serves a nonrenewable five-year term, to protect the panel’s independence. In making and confirming these appointments, elected officials must keep the city’s interests, and not their own, foremost in their minds.