Where Angelenos Fear to Tread

By Susan Tifft

When Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley appointed a special commission in April to come up with a new city ethics code, critics dismissed it as a face-saving device. After all, Bradley had just narrowly won re-election after a campaign that centered on his alleged ethical lapses -- including his serving as a paid adviser to two banks that did business with the city. But last week the seven- member panel proved it was no rubber stamp. It proposed a code of conduct for city employees and elected officials that may be the most stringent in the country.

The code would outlaw all outside earned income, including honorariums, for decision-making officials. Former officials could not lobby city departments for one year after leaving the payroll, and would be permanently barred from acting as lobbyists or advocates on matters directly related to their government employment. Candidates for city office would be forbidden to raise campaign funds until nine months before an election, and partial public funding would be available for hopefuls who agreed to spending limits.

The most sweeping of the panel's 30 recommendations concern financial disclosure. Elected officials, high-ranking civil servants and candidates for city office would have to make public the exact amount of their income and investments, including their homes, and even list the names of their stockbrokers. Lobbyists who received more than $1,000 a year to influence city officials would have to disclose their transactions each quarter. Taken together, the proposed regulations could affect as many as 1,500 of Los Angeles' 45,000 employees, as well as an undetermined number of lobbyists and candidates.

The panel urged creation of an independent watchdog agency with the power to impose civil fines of up to $5,000, or as much as three times the amount involved in a violation. Keeping city officials aboveboard will not be cheap. The additional personnel, office space for housing the mountain of new disclosure forms, matching public campaign funds and mandatory ethics training for every city department are expected to cost between $2 million and $4 million a year.

Unlike the ethics and pay legislation passed by Congress earlier this month, the Los Angeles proposals do not make up for banned outside income with salary increases. This leads some critics to wonder whether many Angelenos, faced with relatively low city wages and the prospect of having to reveal their most intimate financial affairs, won't avoid public service if the code goes into effect. Says Michael Harmon, a professor of public administration at George Washington University: "The implicit message is one of distrust."

Bradley, who is under investigation by state and federal agencies for possible conflict-of-interest and insider-trading violations, pledged to work for passage of the code by the city council. But that body is writing its own ethics rules and is said to be lukewarm toward the recommendations. Even if the council balks, however, the commission has vowed to take its proposals to the voters as a ballot initiative, which may assure victory since Californians tend to approve such measures. Once enacted, Los Angeles' no-nonsense ethics rules could become the model for municipalities like New York City and Chicago, whose current guidelines are not as tough. Says Bruce Jennings, an associate at the Hastings Center, an ethics institute in Briarcliff Manor, N.Y.: "Cities will see the Los Angeles code as a bellwether for what the public expects of government officials."

With reporting by Edwin M. Reingold/Los Angeles and Andrea Sachs/New York