Alan Roth: After Evans, it’s time to strengthen the DC Council’s Code of Conduct
With the end of DC Council Period 23, it’s time to consider the first votes legislators will take as Council Period 24 begins. On Day One, those votes will include adoption of the council’s own Code of Conduct, which needs real strengthening in the wake of the Jack Evans scandal.
In 2019, I filed a complaint against Evans with the Board of Ethics and Government Accountability (BEGA) after the longtime Ward 2 council member cast several votes to interfere in his own disciplinary proceedings — including one that resulted in a 6-6 tie, enabling him to retain his several committee assignments. I alleged that these votes violated the statutory prohibition against “taking, ordering, or participating in any official action that would adversely affect the confidence of the public in the integrity of the District government.”
While BEGA was sympathetic in many respects to my concerns — and agreed in its decision that it had jurisdiction and authority to act — it bent over backward to accept DC Council Chairman Phil Mendelson’s claim that council members should be treated like members of Congress and be allowed to vote on their own disciplinary matters.
With all due respect to the council, the chairman’s analogy to Congress fails miserably. An intimate body of 13 members, all of whom know each other well and sit together regularly for pre-meeting breakfasts (at least in pre-pandemic times), bears little resemblance to a body of 100 senators or 435 representatives. Particularly in the latter group, many members either barely know each other or aren’t even on speaking terms.
BEGA’s decision itself should embarrass Mendelson and his colleagues: “[Evans’] vote was permissible under the Council’s Code of Conduct and the Council’s Procedural Rules, which dictate that Councilmembers should refrain from voting on a matter in which they have a personal or business interest. Most significantly, Councilmembers are sometimes called upon to consider legislation that would have a direct effect on their personal, non-financial interests and are not expected to abstain or recuse themselves. . . . Moreover, the Respondent’s personal interest in this matter was so evident to his peers and the public, that they could assess his deliberations and votes with full knowledge of his personal interests. His peers were not concerned enough about the Respondent’s personal interest to demand that he abstain or recuse himself or even raise an objection to his participation.” (Emphasis added.)
What a sad commentary on the state of ethics on the council! The corrosive impact this silence has on public perceptions directly undercuts Mendelson’s overinflated view of his body’s stature. In terms of degree of difficulty, policing congressional ethics may score high, but apparently it’s not nearly as formidable a task as shaming one’s own colleague for a self-interested vote in a small, cozy body like the DC Council.
The council’s current Code of Conduct encourages the members to avoid taking “an official action on a matter as to which they have a conflict of interest created by a personal, family, client, or business interest, avoiding both actual and perceived conflicts of interest and preferential treatment.” In this respect, it does go beyond the general statutory restrictions applicable to all District government personnel (including council members). Yet sadly, as we learned during the Evans affair, enforcement mechanisms are weak.
The public should not have to rely on the willingness of a council majority to initiate formal disciplinary proceedings over unethical votes when a council member is already under investigation for unethical conduct. We need a bright line rule: Council members should be required to abstain or recuse themselves from voting in matters involving their own alleged misconduct or related disciplinary actions.
Finally, it would be neither excessive nor burdensome to strengthen the existing Code of Conduct by including an explicit encouragement that members abstain or recuse in other instances “that would adversely affect the confidence of the public in the integrity” of the council. The current Code of Conduct doesn’t even offer that mild guidance. The people of the District deserve better.
Alan Roth is a former chair of Advisory Neighborhood Commission 1C (Adams Morgan). He also served from 2007 to 2016 on the DC Water and Sewer Authority Board of Directors.
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