Getting the government America deserves : how ethics reform can make a difference

Author(s)

Bibliographic Information

Getting the government America deserves : how ethics reform can make a difference

Richard W. Painter

Oxford University Press, c2009

  • : hardback

Available at  / 3 libraries

Search this Book/Journal

Note

Includes bibliographical references and index

Description and Table of Contents

Description

In order to be effective, federal ethics law must address sources of systematic corruption rather than simply address motives that individual government employees might have to betray the public trust, such as personal financial holdings or family relationships. Getting the Government America Deserve articulates a general approach to combating systemic corruption as well as some specific proposals for doing so. Federal ethics law is relatively unknown in legal academia and elsewhere outside of Washington, D.C., but it is binding on over one million federal employees. Lobbyists, federal contractors, lawyers and others who interact with the federal government are also deeply interested in federal ethics law and represent a surprisingly large market for a little-studied area of the law. Getting the Government America Deserve analyzes government ethics law from the perspective of an academic critic and that of a lawyer who was the chief White House ethics lawyer for two and a half years. Richard Painter argues that the existing ethics regime is in need of substantial reform since federal ethics laws fail to curtail conduct that undermines the integrity of government, such as political activity by federal employees and their interaction with lobbyists and interest groups. He also contends that in some other areas, such as personal financial conflicts of interest, there is too much complexity in regulatory and reporting requirements, and rules need to be simplified. Painter's solution includes strengthening the enforcement of ethics rules, reforming the lobbying industry, and changing a system of campaign finance that impedes meaningful government ethics reform.

Table of Contents

  • Chapter 1
  • Government Ethics Rules That Don't Work When We Need Them, Rules We Have That We Do Not Need, And Rules We Need But Don't Have At All
  • Gifts and Travel
  • Financial Disclosure
  • Financial Conflicts of Interest
  • Insider Trading
  • Covered Relationships and the Impartiality Rule
  • The Revolving Door
  • Odd Ball Ethics Rules the Executive Branch does not need but Congress thinks it does
  • Congress's Rules for Itself - Stringency or Hypocrisy?
  • The Rules
  • The Honest Leadership and Open Government Act
  • Can there be better rules?
  • Chapter 2
  • Implementation and Enforcement of Government Ethics Rules - How Big are the Gaps in the System?
  • Sex, Drugs, and Rock and Roll - and Matters of Money and Revolving Doors - in Clearing the President's Nominees
  • Ethics Training, Monitoring and Enforcement at the Agency Level
  • The Office of Government Ethics - An Overworked and Underappreciated Agency
  • Inspectors General. Does the White House need one?
  • Special Government Employees
  • Outsourcing Government Functions - but not Ethics - to Private Contractors
  • Chapter3
  • Bagmen in Black Tie or Professional Intermediaries - The Growth of Lobbying and Prospects for Reform
  • A Short History
  • The Influence of Lobbyists
  • K-Street Society on the banks of the Potomac
  • Use and Abuse of K Street's Power
  • Why the disclosure regime is inadequate and why we need substantive regulation of lobbyists
  • Chapter 4
  • Off the Books Lobbying, Electioneering and the Special Purpose Entities that Do It
  • Think tanks
  • Public Policy Groups
  • Legal Policy Groups
  • Single Issue Advocacy Groups
  • Foreign Governments, Their Friends and Enemies
  • Foreign Policy Advocacy Organizations
  • Religious Advocacy Groups
  • Trade and Industry Associations
  • 501c(4) Organizations and 527s
  • The Overall Impact of Washington's Special Purpose Entities
  • Chapter 5
  • The Official White House Office of Political Affairs, the Unofficial Office of Political Affairs, and Personal Capacity Political Activity by Government Officials
  • Chapter 6
  • Building a Bridge to Somewhere - A Perspective on the Cost of Earmarks from the Banks of the Mississippi
  • Chapter 7
  • Campaign Finance - The Elephant and Donkey in the Room
  • Chapter 8
  • Beyond Ethics and Back - What is Wrong with Government Decision Making?
  • Ethics Officials' Scope of Authority is too Narrow
  • Government Lawyering is sometimes Excessively Political and Insufficiently Objective
  • No Matter how Many Times they Make the Same Mistake, Government Officials Still Succumb to the Psychology of the Cover-up
  • Afterword
  • Index

by "Nielsen BookData"

Details

Page Top