Politics pro form(a)
If it weren’t so serious, it might be comical. The one and only method by which Kansas voters can determine whether candidates have conflicts of interest has turned into a game of finger-pointing in which no one is willing to assume responsibility for making sure candidate disclosures are being made.
State law requires that all candidates for public office complete within 10 days of filing for election an ethics questionnaire that requires them to list their job, their spouse’s job (if any), and all business, investment, pension, and other sources of income their families may have.
But rather than check to make sure these forms are completed, county election officials who collect them say the state is supposed to check them, and state officials who file them say the county is. As a result, no one does.
Is it any wonder that half the candidates for Marion County commissioner in the upcoming election didn’t list any income sources whatsoever on their ethics filings?
We don’t believe they’re destitute, which their answers would seem to indicate. They aren’t being asked whether there’s a conflict. That’s for voters and ethics boards to decide. All they’re being asked for is information on which those decisions could be reached. If they provide no information, no decisions become possible.
Some may view this as nit-picky, like the state law that requires treasurers of third-class cities to publish annual accounting of how city money is spent. Despite being warned, most such cities in the county have repeatedly failed to do so because there is no mechanism to enforce the law — just as there’s no real mechanism to enforce candidate disclosures.
It’s hardly fair to the half of commissioner candidates who bared their financial souls on disclosure forms for the other half to simply check that they have no income sources merely because Kansas, unlike many other states, has state or county auditors or inspectors general to make sure disclosures are made.
The law most certainly is needed. Kansas, unlike the federal government, allows such things as members of the legislative branch to be employed by the executive branch, as is the case with the current front-runner for the Republican nomination for governor.
If voters think the law isn’t needed, the answer is not to ignore it; it’s to change it. Failing to follow state statutes, which make it a Class B misdemeanor to submit an inaccurate or incomplete disclosure form, is a grave danger to the rule of law that holds our democracy together.
We don’t blame the candidates who seem to present themselves as destitute any more than we blame people who fudge on their income tax returns because they know they can get away with it. We have to blame ourselves for not insisting that laws be followed or changed.
Rules that aren’t enforced aren’t rules at all. And, at least in the beginning, there was a good reason to make sure voters had the information needed to determine whether conflicts of interest occur.
This is yet another example of bureaucracy deciding that voters are too apathetic or too stupid to have the information they need to be informed citizens. Absent that information, America’s celebration of 250 years of independent democracy will become meaningless as we inexorably slip away from democracy and into autocratic bureaucracy.
We, the people, are in charge, not bureaucrats who do such things as create review forms for merit raises that score “team members” rather than employees on scales that seem like rephrased versions of “hyper great,” “super great,” “great,” “pretty great,” and “so-so.” We need information — accurate and timely — about what tornado sirens mean, not contradictory information posted on municipal websites and spewed forth on social media for those who actually look at either. We need leaders who follow the law rather than look for every way they can to ignore or bully their way around it.
Otherwise, democracy will be hard pressed to celebrate another 250 days much less 250 years.
— ERIC MEYER