Here’s your chance. If the ethics and behavior of your elected
officials matter to you, the county government is giving you an
opportunity to do something about it.
Here’s your chance. If the ethics and behavior of your elected officials matter to you, the county government is giving you an opportunity to do something about it.
On Friday, County Administrative Officer Susan Thompson and a county attorney will hold a workshop to tell people how to form a campaign ethics committee on their own. Since the county government will not be forming an ethics committee, it is up to residents to do it for themselves. There is no doubt that that is what should happen.
Elections in this country have been so ugly for so long there are many voters alive today who think is has always been that way and always will. It hasn’t, and it doesn’t have to be.
But to get there, proactive steps need to be taken, and that’s why we have issued a challenge to the Board of Supervisors to get serious about creating a county ethics committee to oversee elections. They have not, so we now issue the same challenge to civic-minded residents in the county.
The idea for an ethics commission was first floated in the run-up to the disputed March, 2004 District 5 election, which brought Supervisor Jaime De La Cruz to office amid charges of election irregularities. After that, the board has see-sawed back and forth considering different proposals. It’s clear the county wants nothing to do with it.
But some supervisors have said that they see Santa Clara County’s Campaign Ethics Foundation – a nonprofit group not associated with the county government – as a possible model for San Benito residents to follow if they want to form their own commission. Founded in 1998, the CEF was formed by Santa Clara County residents who were tired of negative political campaigns.
CEF commissioners, who apply for the position and are chosen by a panel of three retired judges, receive complaints from candidates running in a county race who feel that an opponent released misleading or false statements about them. Commissioners, who cannot have any involvement in that particular campaign, then review the complaint and make a decision.
If commissioners decide that a candidate has acted unethically, they recommend consequences – ranging from making the candidate publicly admit their unethical behavior to asking stakeholders to withdraw their endorsement and financial backing from the candidate. Stakeholders are groups within the county, often political action committees, that have agreed to follow the recommendations of the CEF commissioners.
That is a model worth following, and we hope residents will take an interest in attending the meeting and getting an ethics committee formed. And we repeat a previous pledge made in these pages: No candidate for public office in this county will receive the endorsement of this newspaper without signing a pledge provided by the newspaper to campaign ethically.
The workshop, which will be held at 10:30am Friday in the Board of Supervisors Chambers, 481 Fourth St.
