Good government: It's cheap at any price

FOR SOME TIME now, it has occurred to me that while Anne Arundel government may lag behind other counties in some areas, public ethics is not one of them. So it came as something of a surprise to see Anne Arundel's Ethics Commission come under attack in The Sun's news pages last week.

The reporter found that the county spends $57,000 a year on ethics enforcement, far more than Baltimore and the surrounding counties. That's only a tiny fraction of the county's $950 million budget, but the reporter concluded, "In Anne Arundel, good government is expensive." As a result of a 1992 referendum creating a full-service ethics department, the County Council is "stuck with the bill," the reporter wrote, implying that voters had approved something stupid.

Nothing could be farther from the truth. Bossism and political corruption in Maryland date back at least to the 19th century. In the 1970s, we sent one former governor, Marvin Mandel, to prison for mail fraud and racketeering and watched another, Spiro Agnew, resign the vice presidency after investigators found he had taken kickbacks. At the same time, Baltimore County Executive Dale Anderson was convicted of 32 counts of corruption and Anne Arundel County Executive Joe Alton went to jail for accepting bribes.

In Annapolis, state lawmakers have wined, dined and exchanged goodies with lobbyists for years. Last year, the General Assembly finally enacted ethics reforms -- but already two lawmakers have sponsored legislation to water them down.

One of them, Del. Gerald J. Curran of Baltimore, told The Sun he does not see why he should have to let the public know if he attends a lobbyist's party because he might not eat anything. Of course, it's the fact that he attends the party at all that people care about, not how many egg rolls he consumes. As chairman of the House of Delegates' committee that oversees ethics law, one would think he would understand that.

This tawdry background helps explain why in 1992, Anne Arundel voters overwhelmingly approved an independent ethics office and why since then not a single citizen has complained about the paid, two-person staff the measure authorized. People are sick of dirty government. They want a vigilant, independent watchdog to keep it clean.