Conflict of interest

Last year the Pennsylvania Supreme Court distributed new rules forbidding judges from hiring family members. This decision was applauded as a much needed curb on nepotism and one which brought Pennsylvania's judicial guidelines into conformity with much of the nation.

Earlier this year, Northampton County Court President Judge Stephen Baratta hired Alicia Zito as a law clerk, a position that pays about $61,000 a year. Zito is the daughter of county senior judge Leonard Zito. Technically, this is not a violation of the state Supreme Court's edict because Zito did not hire his daughter, but this raises the specter of the perception of a conflict of interest - another judge helping out the daughter of a buddy judge.

Northampton County Judge Emil Giordano's mother-in-law serves as a court officer in his courtroom, while the uncle of another county judge, Michael Koury Jr., serves in the same capacity in his courtroom. Since they had been hired before the high court's ruling went into effect, they have been allowed to keep their jobs.

Pennsylvania has an ethics law, but it has more holes in it than a pound of Swiss cheese, and its provisions are easily skirted. Overseen by the State Ethics Commission, the law is in need of radical surgery. The commission has proposed more than 80 changes or clarifications, but the state General Assembly has failed to act on any of them leaving the state Ethics Act as woefully ineffective. This comes at a time when corruption and official wrongdoing in Pennsylvania has made the commonwealth the laughingstock of the nation.

The problems of conflicts of interest are pervasive, especially in small communities where members of the same family wind up being the only ones interested in running for office or in being appointed to a position by a board on which a family member serves. It becomes especially troublesome in small townships where there are just three members on a board of supervisors.

The ethics law bars public officials from using their offices to financially feather their own nests, or those of their own families or their businesses. There is one glaring hole in the law that was passed 37 years ago: It does not include in-laws or stepchildren in its definition of those in the immediate family. With the pervasiveness of today's blended families, this makes the omission all the more problematic.

Just as with the Northampton County judges, there are plenty of examples in Carbon and Schuylkill counties where, let's say, school board members will back the appointment of a colleague's relative with the expectation that, if the situation ever arose, the favor would be returned.

Public officials must understand that it is not only the actual conflict that is damaging to the integrity and reputation of an officeholder, but it is the perception of a conflict of interest that is equally hurtful.

The seventh president of the United States, Andrew Jackson, was one of the most prominent abusers of what we call the "Spoils System" - "to the victor belongs the spoils."

For years, patronage was the grease that made the political machine crank into high gear, but thanks to competitive Civil Service tests and other practices where competency determines who gets the job, this problem has been significantly contained.

There are, however, many other jobs where public officials can manipulate the system and their colleagues to get family members and friends coveted jobs which should go to more qualified candidates. That's where we get the cynical notion of: It's not what you know but whom you know."

This is unethical behavior, and public officials need to not only avoid actual conflicts but the perception of conflicts to restore honor and integrity to the political system.

BRUCE FRASSINELLI | tneditor@tnonline.com