When is a conflict not a conflict: when you announce it just before you vote

It is hard to believe that a man is telling the truth when you know that you would lie if you were in his place.

HL Mencken

As I sat in the audience at the latest Colonial Heights City Council meeting, I listened as five Council members declared possible Conflicts of Interest in several different matters that were being voted on as part of the city’s Consent Agenda.  Before the start of the voting procedure, the council members each in turn declared that a husband or wife was a member of a group that was involved in some action they would be voting on.

There’s an old legal saying about Conflict of Interest that it might behoove council to pay attention to.  It’s said that in matters of Conflict of Interest the parties should “avoid even the perception of a conflict of interest”.  What that means is that if it smells like a potential conflict of interest one ought to avoid it.

Not so with our City Council.  They believe by making a statement in public recognizing the potential conflict of interest that they can then go ahead and vote on matters that involve a potential conflict of interest.  While that statement may satisfy their own qualms and perhaps the letter of the law, it doesn’t really satisfy the ethical fact that they have a conflict of interest.

Why not just bow out of those measures?

Is it such a big deal to hold your vote outside of the one or two agenda items than it is to announce the potential conflict and yet vote anyway?  Not to me.

For the most part, what they were voting for didn’t really matter, if you consider pay raises and other issues minor.  And in the scheme of the city, they are minor.

But, despite the announcement caveat, it would be in their self-interest to simply avoid the conflict.  It’s not like abstaining from that vote would change the outcome.

While I appreciate the candor of those people identifying the conflict, it is incredible to think that they would act without bias.  Do you really think you could vote against something that might include a raise for your spouse?

It’s hard for me to swallow the idea that someone, not just city council, could declare the conflict and then go ahead and vote anyway.  That, in my opinion, does not meet the “avoid even the perception” of a conflict of interest.  A conflict is a conflict and just because you acknowledge it the acknowledgement does not make it go away.  You still have a potential conflict of interest.

What would it mean to simply step aside for the vote?  All of the matters that were on the consent agenda were approved unanimously.  Even if all five council members had a conflict with the same exact item, the matter would still have passed.

It’s a small city.  There are few people out there who have enough interest in city government and for running for council office anyway so there are abound to be some conflicts of interest. I can accept that.

Most political scholars will tell you that a perception of conflict of interest is just as damning as a real conflict of interest.  It may in fact be worse, because it is the kind of kindling that fires the rumor mill.  As the council members, one after the next, declared their potential conflict of interest, I started to wonder why they didn’t just step out of that particular approval.  It’s a simple thing to do really.  And in the end, it presents a very transparent view of the council’s actions.  Deep down inside, I know for me, it would be difficult to vote against something that would benefit my spouse or my children, but then some people have a higher threshold for perception than I do.