I Am Not Conflicted So You Should Not Be Either

Conflict of interest (courtesy of The 'Lectric Law Library Lexicon)= Refers to a situation when someone, such as a lawyer or public official, has competing professional or personal obligations or personal or financial interests that would make it difficult to fulfill his duties fairly.

Note that the definition does not mean that something unethical or illegal actually happened, just that a person's interests would make it difficult. Sometimes it seems that the political class does not even know the definition of conflict of interest or chooses to ignore the part that says you do not have to have something illegal or unethical happen for a conflict to exist. In either case, consider the following short list of examples that fall under this definition and continue to undermine our belief that politicians do put themselves before their constituents and the country:

• According to an article in the St. Petersburg Times on June 30, 2009, Congresswoman Ginny Brown-Waite was very interested, both professionally and personally, in the massive taxpayer bailout of the banking industry. Not only did she sit on the House committee that oversaw the banking industry, she also personally invested in specific banks she was supposed to be regulating. The day before the bailout of Citigroup, she bought the company's stock. Eleven days later she bought stock in Bank Of America just as the administration announced another massive dose of taxpayer money going to banks like Bank Of America. The Congresswoman denied that there was any conflict of interest. Huh? You are sitting on a BANKING committee and have access to tons of information about specific banks, the industry as a whole, possible government actions, etc. and you are actively trading banking stocks. In the real world, if we did something like that we would probably by liable for insider trading violations. But as long you are a member of the political class, it seems as long as you vow no conflict of interest occurred, none did.
• On January 4, 2009, the St. Petersburg Times reported that Senator Hillary Clinton was able to get a New York developer special tax treatment and government road funding for his mall development project around the same time that the developer contributed $100,000 to husband Bill Clinton's foundation. When you are an elected official and your husband is getting money and your actions result in good things happening for that donor, it is a conflict of interest even if nothing illegal or unethical happened.
• The next example is Senator Dodd of Connecticut who, of course, has denied there was any conflict of interest in his dealing with Countrywide Financial. This past week the Senate Ethics Committee, consisting of members of the political class, cleared Dodd of any ethics violations. However, is this not a case of the foxes guarding the hen house? The pessimist in me says that if they had found Dodd violated ethics rules, they themselves might be cut off from similar deals in the future. Just my cynicism shining through I guess. Thus, I will leave it to you to decide if he had any conflicts of interest even if nothing illegal happened (source: Wikipedia):

1. Dodd is currently the chairman of the Senate Banking committee and thus, has tremendous influence and power in the entire housing and banking industry
2. In 2003, Dodd received favorable mortgage loans from Countrywide Financial on two properties
3. In 2008, Dodd proposed a program that would greatly benefit subprime lenders such as Countrywide Financial, the company that gave him the good mortgage deals
4. Countrywide Financial was bought by Bank Of America
5. Bank Of America also contributed $70,000 to Dodd's election committee
6. Dodd also received over $130,000 in campaign donations from Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae even though they are Federal housing programs, i.e. you paid taxes to the government, some of which found its way to these two government housing industry entities that turned around and took some of those dollars and gave it to a member of the political class. Thus, in essence, all of us subsided Dodd's reelection campaign.

• And one last example from the St. Petersburg Times on December 11, 2008. In mid-2008, many banks gave millions of dollars to both parties of the political class for the expense of their conventions. Several months later, the same political class throws untold billions of taxpayer dollars at this same banks . Coincidence? I do not think so. Just another example where competing obligations arose and the political class chose themselves over the interests of their districts, their states and the country.

These kinds of actions make it very difficult to believe anyone from the political class when they say they are supporting something or doing something for our own good, these examples and many other instances would indicate we are not at the top of their priority list. It undermines the very foundation of this country that the government is looking out for our individual self interests.

There is a very simple solution that would clear all of this up: during you tenure in office and for several years after your tenure ends, you are not allowed to personally deal with that industry or section of the economy that you are involved in through committee work. Sit on the Banking Committee, then you cannot invest or receive campaign donations from the banking industry. Sit on a Congressional energy committee, then you are not allowed to invest in or receive campaign donations form oil companies, electric companies etc. The fact that this simple yet bold rule is not part of our government processes indicates that the political class really does not care about conflicts of interest since it conflicts with their self interest.