|
The New York Times
Dual-Job Ban Is Not
Enough, Report Says
By RONALD SMOTHERS,
nytimes.com on the Web, July 20, 2007
TRENTON, July 19 — Only weeks
after New Jersey adopted a ban on holding more than one elective office at a
time, effective next year, a research organization said on Thursday that there
was still a potential for conflicts of interest because nearly 700 residents who
hold elective office also have public jobs.
The study, by New Jersey Policy Perspective, a liberal research organization
here, comes on the heels of that group’s similarly critical 2006 study of dual
elective-office-holding.
Tom O’Neill, the principal author of both the new report and last year’s, said
that the same threats to government performance and trustworthiness presented by
holding two elective offices at once are even more pervasive when state, county
or local elected officials have other publicly financed jobs.
“New Jersey should now turn its attention to this issue in an effort to promote
government that functions effectively in the public interest and a political
system that gives less room for public suspicions, often well grounded, that
personal interests come first,” the report said.
But Mr. O’Neill and others who conducted the study said that mixing local
elected office with public employment was not always improper. They said they
were not calling for a ban, but for creation of a commission to set the rules
and review accusations of conflicts of interest.
As an example he cited Louisiana, where a grid has been drawn up indicating what
types of full-time public employment would conflict with various elected posts.
Mr. O’Neill said that a teacher or emergency medical technician serving as an
elected county official was probably not a problem. But a state lawmaker
who was also an undersheriff or an assistant prosecutor frustrated the idea of
separation of powers, he said. It also put such officials in a position,
through such things as senatorial courtesy, to influence the appointment of
judges in their counties, he added.
According to the study, there are roughly 600 people elected to city, town and
borough posts who are also public employees. This represents about 20
percent of all local elected nonschool officials. Of that group of 600,
some 30 percent are employed in public education, 20 percent work in county
government jobs and 14 percent work with public authorities.
A look at the state’s 10 largest cities by the researchers found that more than
50 percent of council members work in public jobs. Of the 137 county
freeholders, 40 percent hold at least one other public job. And in the
State Legislature, 12 of the 40 senators derive income from public employment
and 26 of the 80 Assembly members have such jobs.
William E. Schluter, a former member of the Senate who is now a member of the
State Ethics Commission, is an author of the report. He said in a press
conference that many of the public jobs held by those elected below the state
level were posts where county political leaders had influence in doling out
patronage.
Assembly Speaker Joseph J. Roberts said he welcomed the report’s challenge to
lawmakers to look for ways of minimizing conflict without denying teachers,
firefighters, municipal prosecutors and other public employees the opportunity
to serve.
|
