Scandal Proof: Do Ethics Laws Make Government Ethical

(Paperback)

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In 1961, President John F. Kennedy signed Executive Order 10930, the first step in a long series of efforts to regulate the ethical behaviour of US executive branch officials. A few years later, Lyndon B. Johnson required all senior officials to report assets and sources of non-government income to the Civil Service Commission. The reaction to Watergate opened the floodgates to more laws and rules: the Ethics in Government Act of 1978, subsequent expansions of that act in the 1980s and 1990s and sweeping executive orders by Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton. The consequence of these aggressive efforts to scandal proof the federal government is a heavy accumulation of law and regulation administered by agencies employing hundreds of people and spending millions of dollars every year. Ethics regulation has been one of the steady growth sectors in the federal government for decades. This text explores the process that led to the contemporary state of ethics regulation in the federal executive branch. It assesses whether efforts to scandal proof the federal government have been successful, what they have cost and whether reforms should be considered.

Reviews

"... well written and thoroughly documented." J.S. Robey, University of Texas at Brownsville, Choice, 4/1/2003

"Academics are never more useful than when they are taking on conventional wisdom and tearing it apart. That is exactly what G. Calvin Mackenzie...has done in a delightful new paperback titled Scandal Proof: Do Ethics Laws Make Government Ethical

" David Broder, The Washington Post

"'Scandal Proof' is a thoughtfully written account and highly recommended..." Wisconsin Bookwatch, 2/1/2003

"Scandal Proof' is intriguing on several fronts...Mackenzie and Hafkin marry these political foci with a traditional policy analysis centered around costs and benefits to assess both the output and the outcome of attempts to deal with scandal. Thus, Mackenzie and Hafkin's work has a relatively wide range of appeal. Students of politics as well as participants within the system will find this work compelling as well as useful... In spite of, or perhaps because of, the contemplation of the unquantifiable, Scandal Proof provides an effective means for evaluating the enormous array of regulation of an unattainable goal." Joseph White, Case Western Reserve University, Congress and the Presidency

"Scandal Proof successfully attempts to outline and explore the development and current status of ethics regulation in the federal executive branch....highly readable, lively and accessible and best suited to specialised undergraduate or postgraduate courses." Esther C. Jubb, Liverpool John Moores University, Political Studies Review, 1/1/2004

"...this is an important book. It will stimulate arguments from several different perspectives. The book highlights important issues about our traditional approach to regulation. It uses the lens of ethics regulation to raise critical questions about how we 'solve' problems." Raymond W. Cox, III, University of Akron, Presidential Studies Quarterly, 9/1/2003

Author Bio

G. Calvin Mackenzie is the Goldfarb Family Distinguished Professor of American Government at Colby College and an adviser to the Brookings Presidential Appointee Initiative. He is the editor of Innocent until Nominated: The Breakdown of the Presidential Appointments Process (Brookings, 2001). Michael Hafken is a research analyst at the Brookings Institution.