Category Archives: Ethics

Adam Pagnucco, Ethics, Marc Elrich, Montgomery County Council

Volcano in Rockville

By Adam Pagnucco.

When the county council met yesterday to consider the case of admitted ethics violator and Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) Andrew Kleine, one word alone can describe what happened: Eruption. Rockville was covered by a black cloud of ash and lava sprayed through the streets as the council held very little back. Montgomery County Government has never seen anything quite like it.

The basics are simple: last year, executive branch county employees (all of whom work under Kleine) complained to the ethics commission about his book marketing and his relationship with contractors with whom he had done private business and then had gone on to help obtain county contracts. After an investigation by the county’s inspector general, Kleine proposed a “cure” which involved the payment of $5,000 and his abstention from outside employment. The ethics commission accepted the cure and the county executive has allowed Kleine to remain as CAO. Seventh State has previously published columns on the issue on July 2, July 7, July 9 and July 27.

Kleine was not present at the council’s meeting, leaving ethics commission chair Rahul Goel and ethics commission staff director Robert Cobb to brief the council on Kleine’s ethics case. Before elaborating on the situation with Kleine, Goel and Cobb suggested a need for mandatory ethics training for all county employees, including elected officials. No one disagreed with that. But the council did not buy that ethics training alone would have prevented Kleine’s actions. What followed was a remarkable and unprecedented display by the council members in which some walked right up to the line of calling for the CAO’s resignation without actually crossing it. Consider these quotes from the briefing.

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Council Member Nancy Navarro

Training is important but how would that have avoided this situation? And it’s one thing for an employee to have done something like this but when it’s the Chief Administrative Officer, that raises for me some concerns because the employees, the county government employees obviously are under the Chief Administrative Officer and it is very difficult with a straight face to say to our employees “you’re going to have to go to mandatory training” when the Chief Administrative Officer himself didn’t seem to understand the basics of ethics and conflicts of interest…

I personally still have some concerns regarding the ability of Mr. Kleine to be the Chief Administrative Officer of our county government when there was such a lapse in judgment regarding something like this.

Council Member Gabe Albornoz

I’m troubled that Mr. Kleine was not put on administrative leave during the course of the investigation and continued in his role as the head of procurement for our entire county through this investigation. I’m concerned that the county executive has not reached out to my colleagues and I to express how his administration has taken this matter extraordinarily seriously, how there has been, I believe, a statement from the county executive but not much more than that in terms of his comments on this particular matter.

Because the ripple effect of a situation like this is profound. What do we say to department heads who are also found guilty of similar violations? That you get one strike? You get a pass the first time around and yes, there is a cure, but the cure for the payment of $5,000 and the retainment of employment is significant in light of what we have seen. And I appreciate those recommendations and I also appreciate the recommendation of additional training.

But the broader question here is trust. And I worked in an executive branch for twelve years and know how important that trust is among colleagues. And I don’t believe enough has been done beyond this cure to repair the damage from the messaging that this sends to all the county government, that this sends to people that deal in their business with county government. And I don’t think quite frankly that this matter has been taken seriously enough by this administration. And that’s a concern.

Council Member Hans Riemer

This whole incident reinforces a concern that I have had about – and I think many people in the county government have had about the chief administrator’s work. The county executive has allowed him to really apply his personal business theory, his personal business practice, “turn the curve,” to his management of the county government. The county executive has required all of our departments to participate in something that really often feels like a demonstration project for a consulting practice. And it often feels like it substitutes jargon for real management initiatives. And that has been weighing on me for a lot of time. And I think that this report just raises some real questions about the continuing of the consulting business and really whether the intended – whether the chief administrator’s success is the county’s success. And I think that that is weighing on a lot of people and department heads and managers. And I think we do have an issue. We need to restore the confidence of this county government in the leadership of the executive branch.

Council Member Craig Rice

At the end of the day, this falls on the county executive. The county executive wants to continue to have the number two person in charge be a person who has committed serious ethics violations, that’s a choice he’s going to have to justify, that’s a choice that he’s going to have to stand up and say this is why he feels as though it’s comfortable to have this person still in charge in a leadership position.

Council Member Andrew Friedson

Public trust is the only currency that we have in public life. It’s all we have in terms of our ability to govern, and to me, this speaks directly to public trust. And it’s why I share many of the comments of colleagues of how disturbed and disappointed I am by the contents of the ethics report because that’s what this speaks to. And it’s not a member of the county government, it is not some county employee, it is the top county employee, the person who is in charge of running the government. And I speak similarly to comments that were made about – the comments about training. This is not a training issue. Let’s not obscure what happened here. This is specifically a clear violation of ethics and of public trust. That’s what it is. It is a massive, massive failure of judgment in the highest position in county government…

When we talk about this as being a cure, it’s kind of a euphemism. What this really is effectively is a plea agreement.

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Volcanic eruptions can be hard to survive due to their pollution of the atmosphere, the danger of lava flows and the potential for subsequent discharges. In this case, the repeat discharge potential is real with multiple council members asking whether Kleine received special treatment (a subject for another time!) and requesting more information. Lava, like water, can drip drip drip.

With the council’s eruption threatening to bury the executive branch in a blanket of burning ash, the big question now is: why has the county executive allowed Kleine to stay? And will that continue?

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Adam Pagnucco, Ethics, Marc Elrich

Kleine on the Line Again

By Adam Pagnucco.

Nearly a year ago, I wrote a column called “Kleine on the Line” about the county’s embattled Chief Administrative Officer (CAO), Andrew Kleine. Back then, I wrote:

Andrew Kleine is a smart guy with interesting ideas and a lot to offer. But we are now at a big moment. The chief administrative officer is the single most critical non-elected employee of county government. He or she must be beyond reproach and in total alignment with the county executive’s priorities.

The controversy over Kleine’s former business partner and his book sales, as well as the scathing letter from the unions, calls into question whether this is the case with Kleine. [County Executive Marc] Elrich must resolve these issues one way or another or his administration will pay the price.

A year later, Elrich has paid a price in the form of a searing report by the ethics commission and the inspector general detailing how Kleine steered county contracts to his business partners and converted county government into a book club. Now Kleine really is on the line as the county council is due to discuss his ethics problems in an open meeting tomorrow.

The ethics commission report by itself would generate harsh consequences in any other administration. But it is not the only issue with regard to the CAO’s record. Kleine described implementing Elrich’s campaign-era “90 Days Financial To-Do List” as one of his top priorities in November 2018, but numerous promises in that list have gone unfulfilled or under-fulfilled. The list included a ten-year financial plan (not done as of the FY21 budget), a “structural review of all departments in partnership with the county’s unions” (where is it?), an innovation fund (cut back from a $2 million request last year to one $71,545 software project) and a promise to “introduce or strengthen mechanisms that hold county leaders accountable to both other employees and to the public.” That last one reeks with irony.

There is more. Restructuring in cooperation with the unions was a major Elrich campaign promise, but since the unions have put their objections to Kleine in writing, whether this can be completed with Kleine having any part in it remains in doubt. The CAO’s office would normally have a role in approving department head nominees and the nominations of Vennard Wright (technology services) and Tonya Chapman (police department) were both train wrecks due to lack of vetting. The administration’s two-year budgeting initiative, with which Kleine was directly involved, was resisted by the county council and made no appearance in the FY21 budget. And it’s unclear whether Kleine was directly involved with the $10 million “magic asterisk,” the illegal negative appropriation in the executive’s recommended budget intended to account for phantom savings from “cost efficiencies.” But if he did have a role in it, add that to the above list.

The CAO preaches “outcome budgeting” in his book and elsewhere, but given the above record, what has been done that has yielded a positive, documented and significant financial benefit for the county?

Now let’s put all this into context. At the time of Kleine’s arrival in county government towards the end of 2018, two other events were occurring. First, Kleine’s predecessor – 12-year CAO Tim Firestine – was leaving. Unlike Kleine, who had never worked in MoCo government before, Firestine had been with the county for nearly 40 years. Before he was CAO, he was the county’s highly regarded finance director for 15 years. He was well known and well respected in both the executive and legislative branches. Firestine wasn’t warm and cuddly, but no one disputed that he was honest, competent and totally uninterested in self-promotion. He left very big shoes to fill.

The other huge event was the revelation that former economic development official Peter Bang had stolen $7 million from county government. The news was arguably the biggest scandal in county history and shocked people who had worked with Bang, who cultivated a reputation as a sharp dressing, no-nonsense professional. In the aftermath of Bang’s arrest, ethics became an even higher priority in a government that prided itself on avoiding the municipal corruption that so often plagues other jurisdictions in the region.

Into this arena descended Kleine, who immediately set out to direct county contracts to his private business partners and began promoting his book throughout county government and beyond. Bear in mind that 99% of county employees knew little or nothing of Kleine when he arrived. This was the first impression he was making on them. Say what you will about MoCo government, but it is full of professional, experienced and dedicated people – both managers and rank-and-file – who would never think of going anywhere near a conflict of interest. How did they see Kleine’s behavior? We don’t know how all of them saw it, but we do know from the ethics report that employees from two different county departments went to the ethics commission to complain. If these employees are still in county government, they are still working for Kleine even after he admitted to violating two sections of ethics law.

There has been no allegation of criminal activity by Kleine but he is guilty of extremely bad judgment that went on for months. How can he remain in his current role? He is the administrative head of county government. The next time he appears before the county council (in person or virtually), he has to know that all nine of them will be thinking about his ethics violations. The same goes for his own employees. Is there a senior manager anywhere in county government who has not read the ethics report? How can Kleine command the respect and good will any CAO needs to run the government?

The other question here is: where was Elrich? In the spring of 2019, rumors were everywhere about Kleine’s book promotion and his contractors. Was Elrich completely unaware of what was happening or was he aware and saw nothing wrong with it? Neither scenario is appealing. Kleine is the most senior non-elected person in the administration and reports to only one person – Elrich. If Kleine remains CAO after a slap on the wrist, it’s an open question as to whether Elrich is capable of firing anyone – or even disciplining them – for misconduct. What impact will that have on the culture of the executive branch?

That brings us to the county council, which is due to discuss Kleine at an open meeting tomorrow. The council can’t discipline Kleine directly – that is the prerogative of Elrich alone. But the council’s views on Kleine relate to a major theme of this term: the council’s lack of respect for the Elrich administration. The council has voted down Elrich’s labor agreements, rejected his approach to fixing the county’s balky public safety communications system, rejected his tax hike proposal (on the very day he offered it), rewritten his second budget, rejected his first nominee for police chief, passed its own set of health regulations in protest of his performance on COVID testing and regularly ignores his input on legislation. Then came Elrich’s hot mic joke that the council is allegedly “fact proof,” which drew harsh responses from Council Members Nancy Navarro and Gabe Albornoz. It’s hard to imagine the council having an even worse opinion of the administration, but if it comes to believe that Elrich tolerates unethical conduct, his influence will dwindle to zero. That’s obviously bad for Elrich. It’s also not so great for the daily function of county government.

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Adam Pagnucco, Ethics

MoCo’s Book Club

By Adam Pagnucco.

You might think of Montgomery County Government as an entity that finances schools, deploys police and fire fighters, maintains roads, administers social services, operates libraries and more. Yes, it is all of those things. But under the Elrich administration, it became one more thing:

A book club.

Imagine that you write a book. You think it’s a great book. It’s all about how to run a local government. And then you get a dream job actually running a local government. And it’s not just any local government – it’s a very prestigious one, with more than 8,000 employees who will now be working for you. You think this government is doing OK, but it could do a lot better if it was run in accordance with what your book says. So what are you going to do?

Encourage as many of your employees to read that book as possible.

That is one of the biggest themes pervading the bombshell report written by the ethics commission and the inspector general (IG) about Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) Andrew Kleine, the top manager in county government. Ethics complaints made by county employees last year resulted in Kleine admitting to breaking two provisions of county ethics law over issues related to his book, City on the Line, and his participation in getting two of his private business partners county contracts.

Kleine is not the star of the report. His book is. Over and over, it’s about the book.

The IG noted many details about the promotion of Kleine’s book inside county government. Consider the following excerpts from the report.

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Multiple County employees reported to the IG that Mr. Kleine often spoke about his book to County employees and that they felt they needed to read it. OMB [the Office of Management and Budget] referred to City on the Line in its budget training sessions, after which County employees from various departments emailed that they needed a copy.

On December 10, 2018, Mr. Kleine retweeted a tweet from the program director of the political science program at UMBC at Shady Grove that stated, “#MoCo agency bosses are reading/having staff read incoming Chief Administrative Officer’s @awkleine’s book City on the Line. You should too. Available at Amazon for $35 http://a.co./d/hf7xUtV @UMBCpolisci @MarcElrich”

On December 18, 2018, a County Department Director emailed that City on the Line was “assigned to him as mandatory reading.” The CAO supervises County department directors and would be the person who could require certain work assignments from Department Directors.

On April 29, 2019, the Director of OMB emailed staff, “To help the office plan for outcome budgeting and the Turn the Curve initiative, we have five copies of the books City on the Line and Trying Hard is Not Good Enough. Please see me or Darlene if you want to borrow one. I also have coupons if you want to purchase your own copy of City.”

On June 6, 2019, an OMB employee emailed a telework plan that included reading City on the Line.

On July 1, 2019, the Director of OMB emailed his staff a compilation of takeaways from City on the Line.

On August 6, 2019, an OMB employee asked an OMB staff member and a Recreation Department budget specialist to draft a presentation for the Training Implementation Workgroup. “You can use City on the Line, Chapter 3… as a reference.”

A speaker note on the OMB & Training Implementation Workgroup September 2019 presentation, “Outcome Based Budgeting FY21 Operating Budget” stated that, “We can use the example – from City on the Line Pg 58/59.”

On August 14, 2019, an OMB employee emailed other staff, “As a suggestion, it may be advantageous to read the following materials to gain a better understanding of Outcome Based Budgeting and Turn the Curve thinking: City on the Line and Trying Hard is Not Good Enough.”

On August 19, 2019, a Recreation Department emailed, “Could you please order me a copy of City on the Line… we are discussing it in our work sessions and I am the only person in the group who does not have a copy. Plus we are receiving work assignments related to the information in the book.”

On August 19, 2019, a Department of Permitting Services employee emailed a request for City on the Line via 2-day shipping from Amazon and wrote, “I normally wouldn’t pay this, but we need this book to reference for outcome budgeting, which is a new way of budgeting this year.”

On August 23, 2019, a Department of Police employee emailed, “In the budget meetings I am going to they keep referring to a book ‘City on the Line.’”

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And so the book was integrated into the operations of county government. Employees were being encouraged to read it and some felt left in the dark if they didn’t. That means books had to be acquired and someone had to pay for them. According to the report, the county spent approximately $3,000 to buy 89 copies of Kleine’s book. Kleine earned total royalties from all purchases of $3,157 on the book through the end of 2018. Royalties paid in 2019 and 2020 are not mentioned in the IG report.

Even this guy thinks all this book stuff is getting out of hand.

Kleine also promoted the book at events outside the county government while on work time. The screen shot below from the IG’s report details how 80 hours of Kleine’s official work time – charged to taxpayers – included book promotion.

Did Kleine’s activities create an appearance of improper influence? Here is what the IG’s report had to say about that:

Redactions like the ones above are made to protect witnesses. Because Kleine is still the CAO, these witnesses presumably remain Kleine’s subordinates if they are still employed by the county.

What should we make of all this?

Throughout the report, Kleine comes across as a man who wants to be a celebrity, a public management guru, who preaches things like “Turn the Curve” to build his brand, sell books, make speeches and get consultant contracts. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that but that’s not why taxpayers are paying him $280,000 a year. We need a nuts-and-bolts operations manager in this role, someone who makes the trains run on time and works on behalf of the taxpayers with no other agenda at play.

It’s incredible that this needs to be said, but the CAO should be running county government, not converting it into a royalty-generating book club.

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Adam Pagnucco, Ethics

Council Puts Elrich on the Spot Over Kleine

By Adam Pagnucco.

The Montgomery County Council has issued the statement below about Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) Andrew Kleine. Kleine, who is the highest ranking manager in county government and is answerable only to County Executive Marc Elrich, has admitted to two ethics violations related to promoting his book and helping two of his business partners get county contracts. The council says that it is “disappointed and troubled by the actions” of Kleine and intends to hold an “oversight meeting” on the matter. That said, only Elrich can decide what happens to Kleine.

The council’s statement appears below.

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Montgomery County Council statement on July 1 Ethics Commission agreement with Chief Administrative Officer Kleine

ROCKVILLE, Md., July 7, 2020–Council President Sidney Katz made the following statement on behalf of the Montgomery County Council about the July 1 Ethics Commission agreement with Chief Administrative Officer Andrew Kleine.

Our system of representative government depends on the people maintaining the highest trust in their elected officials and government employees. All Montgomery County residents expect and deserve public employees who are impartial and use independent and sound judgment when making decisions that impact more than one million community members.

The Council is disappointed and troubled by the actions of Chief Administrative Officer Kleine. We greatly appreciate the Montgomery County Ethics Commission and the Office of the Inspector General for investigating Mr. Kleine’s actions and bringing these issues to light. Montgomery County’s ethics law applies to all County government employees and elected officials and has standards in place to guard against conflicts of interest and improper influence and includes comprehensive ethical standards for conducting County business.

The Montgomery County Charter provides that Mr. Kleine serves at the pleasure of County Executive Elrich. As one of the highest-ranking employees in Montgomery County, Mr. Kleine has a heightened responsibility to instill trust among the public, employees and government leaders. While we acknowledge that Mr. Kleine has taken responsibility for his actions, we also encourage him to do everything in his power to work on rebuilding the community’s trust. Moreover, the Council will conduct an oversight meeting on this matter in July.

#

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Adam Pagnucco, Ethics

County’s Top Manager Admits Violating Ethics Law

By Adam Pagnucco.

Andrew Kleine, the county’s Chief Administrative Officer and the highest-ranking non-elected employee of the county, has admitted to violating two provisions of the county’s ethics law and has offered to cure those violations in part through a $5,000 payment to the county. Bethesda Beat reported that Kleine was the subject of an ethics investigation in September 2019.

The document released today by the county’s Ethics Commission contains a summary of the violations and other related matters, the content of Kleine’s proposal to cure the violations, and a redacted investigatory report by the county’s inspector general with more detail.

The issues with Kleine involve two private companies – Healthy Outcomes Inc. (aka Balancing Act) and Clear Impact LLC. Kleine worked with the two companies when he was Baltimore City’s budget director. When Kleine left his position at Baltimore City, he formed his own company (Andrew Kleine Consulting LLC) and wrote a book. Kleine’s company entered into formal contracts with Balancing Act and had an “informal, mutually beneficial arrangement” with Clear Impact before he joined the county government. Kleine subsequently was appointed by County Executive Marc Elrich and confirmed by the county council as the county’s Chief Administrative Officer, the top manager in county government, in December 2018.

Balancing Act

Kleine’s contracts with Balancing Act, which allowed the company to claim some of his book revenues, were terminated on January 24, 2019. Neither side derived any revenues from the book. Kleine “was involved in establishing the relationship between the County and Balancing Act” which led to a one-year county contract with the company for $9,880 on 12/21/18, while Kleine’s own contracts with Balancing Act were in effect. The commission wrote:

Mr. Kleine understands that the ethics law prohibits him from participating in any matter with a business that he has a contract with, if the contract could reasonably result in a conflict between private interests and public duties. (19A-11(a)(2)(E)). Although Mr. Kleine never received any funds from Balancing Act, Mr. Kleine acknowledges that he violated this provision of the Ethics Law.

In May 2019, Balancing Act – now a county contractor but no longer in a contractual relationship with Kleine – sponsored a signing for Kleine’s book which earned him $42 in royalties for 20 books. The commission wrote, “While having the book signing was Balancing Act’s idea and the gain was very small, Mr. Kleine further realizes there has to be a complete severance of his private business activities and his official duties.”

Clear Impact LLC

Clear Impact paid $5,000 to Kleine for book promotion expenses on July 1, 2018 in return for having its logo printed on the back of Kleine’s book. The commission wrote, “At Mr. Kleine’s request, the Leggett administration engaged Clear Impact in a $10,000 non-competitive contract to facilitate the work of the Elrich Transition Team, starting the day after the election.” In May of 2019, Clear Impact won a $99,000 competitively bid contract to which Kleine remained at arm’s length.

Book Promotion

The commission wrote, “As of September 30, 2019, the County and its employees had purchased 89 copies of the Book, although Mr. Kleine was unaware at the time that County funds were used to buy those books.” The commission went on:

Mr. Kleine was invited on a few occasions to discuss the Book and his strategy for budgeting while he was at conferences or meetings he was attending in connection with his County work. Where these activities required use of County resources or of Mr. Kleine’s title, or otherwise appeared to be conducted as part of Mr. Kleine’s official duties, Mr. Kleine recognizes such activities constituted a misuse of County resources and/or a misuse of the prestige of Mr. Kleine’s office.

The commission noted that Kleine did not seek advice from the County Attorney or the Ethics Commission on the ethics implications of his relationships with Balancing Act and Clear Impact or his book promotion.

Outside Employment Approval

The commission wrote:

Mr. Kleine did seek outside employment approval from the Ethics Commission in late April of 2019 to engage in consulting and promotion of the Book through the Company [ed. – Kleine’s own company]. While the Commission approved the request on June 6, 2019, the Commission had not been informed of the relationships between Mr. Kleine, the Company, and Balancing Act, of Mr. Kleine and Clear Impact, the Book’s relevance to the budget strategy being implemented in Montgomery County, and the lack of separation between promotional activities associated with the Book and Mr. Kleine’s official position. In addition, Mr. Kleine recognizes that he should not have been engaged in any activity resulting in earned income (no matter how minimal) prior to receiving outside employment approval in accordance with requirements in the ethics law. Mr. Kleine acknowledges that his doing so violated 19A-12 of the Ethics Law.

Kleine’s Proposed Cure

Kleine had already terminated his contracts with Balancing Act and removed references to Balancing Act and Clear Impact from his professional website. Kleine proposed to cure the ethics violations through the following additional measures.

Forfeit his approval of outside employment.

Stop promoting the book to county employees and others.

Remove references to his occupation and to Clear Impact from the book’s website.

Not be involved with any matters concerning Balancing Act or Clear Impact without obtaining advice or a waiver from the Ethics Commission.

Direct the county’s chief procurement officer to ensure that no further county funds are spent purchasing his book.

Pay the county $5,000 within 30 days of his proposal to cure the violations.

The commission’s website indicates that it has accepted Kleine’s proposed cure, thereby making its report a public document.

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Baltimore County, Ethics

Guys Like Del. Jalisi Don’t Belong in Public Office

Del. Mary Ann Listanti (D-Harford) has been roundly and rightly called out for using a horrible racist slur ever since Ovetta Wiggins’s reporting over at the Washington Post brought it to public attention. Many of her colleagues, party officials, and activists have called for her resignation.

Bizarrely, however, the General Assembly has appeared far more tolerant of Del. Jay Jalisi’s (D-Baltimore County) repeatedly harmful actions in his public and private life as opposed to Lisanti’s hurtful words. Recall that Wiggins also reported that Del. Jay Jalisi’s daughter successfully applied for a protective order in 2015:

According to court documents, Jalisi’s daughter, 18-year-old Alizay Jalisi, applied for the protective order after her father allegedly slapped her late last month during an argument, the Associated Press reported. He was not criminally charged in the case, and Jalisi has denied the allegations.

“I just chose to be the parent and end the dispute with my child and save my family from more trauma,” Jalisi said in a text Monday night. “There was no finding of guilt by the court. And I am sure everything would be normalized within my family soon since the media spotlight would not be on us after today.”

Personally, I don’t believe Del. Jalisi’s denial, as no one, least of all someone in public office, would willingly accede to a protective order due to a domestic violence claim if it had not occurred. Even if the judge didn’t find him legally “guilty,” there was sufficient evidence to grant the order. As an elected official and a physician, Del. Jalisi also certainly had the agency and the ability to fight the allegations. (In an unusual career path, Del. Jalisi has now left medicine to become a real estate investor.)

The only consequence for Jalisi in the General Assembly was a transfer of committee assignments. Now, the Ethics Committee reports that Del. Jalisi has been abusing his staff and cheating them out of pay that they earned for years and has flouted past committee judgements. His atrocious behavior began soon after he was sworn into the House in 2015:

According to sworn testimony and contemporaneous emails, Delegate Jalisi instructed an aide to work approximately 100 hours of overtime, but refused to approve timesheets reflecting those hours. Delegate Jalisi also refused to allow the aide to leave work when the Maryland General Assembly was on liberal leave status and all bill hearings had been canceled due to inclement weather

According to sworn testimony, Delegate Jalisi’s behavior toward his 2015 legislative staff was “unpredictable” and often “volatile.” Delegate Jalisi treated his staff as “truant” if they left to go to the restroom or to get lunch, and required his staff to keep daily logs of their work and justify to him how the tasks listed on their logs met their job requirements. Delegate Jalisi belittled his staff and accused them of failing to complete their tasks.

Once again, Del. Jalisi denied everything despite a wealth of testimony, evidence and contemporary written accounts of his behavior. Del. Jalisi was similarly “bullying,” “abusive” and “belligerent” in 2016, 2017, 2018, and now in 2019. State troopers were called in during one incident at the Clerk’s office. People in an adjoining office filed a complaint after overhearing his loud abuse of staff. Unacceptable behavior is not a one-off for Del. Jalisi.

The General Assembly reacted very slowly to Del. Jalisi’s repeat offenses:

  • In 2015, the Ethics Committee sent him an admonishing letter stating that his behavior “reflected poorly” on the General Assembly.
  • The Speaker and Majority Whip spoke to him about the complaint and further bad behavior in 2016.
  • In 2017, the Speaker and the Majority Whip “counseled” Del. Jalisi in March and again in October about his improper treatment of staff in both the Human Resources and Clerk’s offices.
  • The Ethics Committee recommended in 2018 that Del. Jalisi not be allowed to have staff starting in 2019 if he did not complete anger management training. The committee essentially reiterated its recommendation when another incident occurred.

Del. Jalisi didn’t complete anger management training by the start of the 2019 session. According to the Ethics Committee report, he nonetheless hired staff and then later falsely promised that his company would pay the staffer when it became clear that the General Assembly would not.

The Ethics Committee recommendations are now stronger, recommending a reprimand by the full House of Delegates and that Del. Jalisi lose committee assignments as well as staff if he doesn’t completely anger management by the start of the 2020 session.

This is too little, too late. Del. Jalisi should resign.

Since Angry Delegate seems unlikely to pursue that course, he should be immediately removed from committees and prohibited from participating in any House activities beyond casting his vote, including county delegation and Democratic Caucus meetings. This should continue until he shows a stronger commitment beyond one anger management course towards mending his ways and should include restitution in some form to the many people he has abused in public office.

The people of Baltimore County and the citizens of Maryland deserve better. Though I laud its recent report, the Ethics Committee also needs to examine why it did not take action with meaningful consequences until the fourth year of Del. Jalisi’s unacceptable pattern of bullying and abuse.

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Ethics

Bananacakes or Not? Cooper Says No, 7S Says Oh Yeah.

Jordan Cooper response to Adam Pagnucco on “Bananacakes or Not?”:

In a recent Seventh State post on February 26th the following is written: “And so we have something extremely rare in MoCo politics: a candidate who drafts a questionnaire for other candidates with an endorsement on the line.” I’d like to correct the record with examples to the contrary:

Serving as a member of the Maryland General Assembly is considered to be a part-time job. State delegates and senators frequently have other means of employment concurrent with their service in elected office. Indeed even members of the Montgomery County Council, which is considered by many to be a full-time legislative body, have additional part-time positions. Just as many members of the legislature and many candidates for elected office have other jobs, so too do I as the host Public Interest Podcast. It is entirely within the realm of accepted practice for candidates and elected officials to be involved with political organizations and for those organizations to issue endorsement questionnaires.

I’d like to add that Public Interest Podcast is a non-partisan entity and, much like The Washington Post, The Baltimore Sun, and other periodicals, issuing endorsements in no way diminishes the non-partisan nature of the endorsing organization. Endorsements will be issued by Public Interest Podcast based solely upon candidate responses to the questionnaire regardless of party affiliation and regardless of whether those candidates’ views are aligned with my own political views.

Seventh State Disagrees.

Adam: I am not defending those other organizations. But there is a difference here: they involve more than one person and can establish recusal procedures. You ARE Public Interest Podcast. There is nothing else there other than you recording interviews with people.

David: I called out Progressive Neighbors four years ago for having a ridiculous number of candidates on their board. Dana Beyer even sent a questionnaire to her opponent. I believe that they’ve fixed the problem and have no candidates on their current Steering Committee. Adam is also correct that PIP is you of course.

Jordan’s Response:

I hadn’t thought of a recusal process before. I could very well have someone else go through the endorsement responses and give them metrics for endorsement, say 7 of 9 questions have a Yes. That would be very fair wouldn’t it? In any case I can assure you that Republicans with whom I disagree personally on many issues will receive a Public Interest Podcast endorsement. I just don’t see a conflict of interest here. Perhaps we’ll have to agree to disagree on this. I did ask quite a few people before I sent out the questionnaire if they thought it was ethical or would present any problems and they told me that as long as I keep the campaign separate from the podcast there’s no reason why I shouldn’t use this opportunity to get candidates speaking about some of the issues I raised that no one else is talking about.

Final Thoughts

David: People frequently misunderstand that someone who recuses themselves from a process does not participate in it. Someone who designs a process for rating other candidates has not recused himself. I don’t see how one can keep the campaign separate from the podcast.

 

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Ethics

Did Simonaire Violate Ethics Rules with Commercial?

Sen. Bryan Simonaire’s (R-31) Commercial

Sen. Bryan Simonaire (R-31, Anne Arundel) has done a commercial for Walt Eger’s auto service center. In the commercial, shown above, Sen. Simonaire uses his title and appears in front of his vehicle complete with Senate license plate and a Simonaire-State Senate sticker on the front of the hood.

The ethics laws governing conduct by members of the General Assembly prohibit commercials like this in a clearcut manner:

Use of Prestige of Office (§ 15-506) The Ethics Law prohibits the intentional use of a legislator’s “prestige of office” for private gain or that of another, but allows the performance of usual and customary constituent services that are provided without compensation.

Even more specifically, the ethics guidelines state:

Do not publicly endorse a commercial entity or product under circumstances that invoke one’s position as a legislator.

Unfortunately for Sen. Simonaire, this is exactly what he did.

If Sen. Simonaire got paid to do the commercials, that would move the problem to selling the prestige of office instead of just using it for the private gain of another.

Simonaire Serves on Ethics Reform Committee

Sen. Simonaire serves currently on the Senate Special Committee on Ethics Reform. In the past, he also was a member of the Work Group to Review Disclosure Requirements of the Public Ethics Law. While ignorance of the law would not serve an excuse, it seems especially thin in this case.

Eger Made Campaign Contributions to Simonaire

Sen. Simonaire received $1000 in campaign contributions from Walt Eger in 2014 election cycle, according to his campaign finance report filed on October 19, 2014.

This same report also reveal loans by Sen. Simonaire in the amount of $54,100 to his own campaign. The most recently filed report indicates that the loan amount remains the same, so it does not appear that the Eger’s contribution has been used towards reimbursing that loan.

The reported cash balance for Simonaire’s campaign committee is $36,701.47. Simonaire could conceivably use funds to pay back the loans. But many legislators never reimburse themselves for these loans and carry them forward for many years.

Conclusion

This could all be friendly in the sense that Walt Eger likes Sen. Bryan Simonaire enough to donate to his campaign. Similarly, Sen. Simonaire could want to help out his friend’s business.

The problem is this sort of cozy relationship that works to the commercial benefit of Walt Eger and the political benefit of Sen. Simonaire is exactly what the General Assembly’s ethics rules are designed to prevent.

This likely serious violation of ethics rules will provide a test for not only how the General Assembly handles these problems–including the leadership of both parties–but also how Gov. Larry Hogan addresses problems within the party that he heads.

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