Ethics in Government Act of 1978

• Author: Jeffrey Lehman, Shirelle Phelps

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Passed in 1978 in the shadow of the WATERGATE scandal, the Ethics in Government Act affects many different aspects of federal government employment. Its most famous provision was the Independent Counsel Law, which gave impetus to very public investigations of officials in three presidential administrations and resulted in the IMPEACHMENT trial of President BILL CLINTON in 1999. That provision has since been allowed to lapse, but many other provisions of the act remained valid through 2003.

When Congress first debated the Ethics and Government Act in the late 1970s, it seemed as if the nation had been through a long nightmare of ethics scandals, with Watergate being only the most prominent and devastating. The purpose of the act was to increase public confidence in the level of integrity of federal government officials, to deter conflicts of interest from arising, and to stop unethical person from entering public service. Generally, the act made provisions for the authority and functions of the Office of Government Ethics, and set up administrative provisions, rules and regulations, and appropriations to enforce federal government ethics. It became law in 1978.

Conflict of Interest Provisions Conflict of interest was one of the chief areas dealt with by the Ethics in Government Act. The act sets forth financial disclosure requirements for federal personnel. (5 USCA Appx 4 § 101 et seq). The applicable provisions detail which persons are required to file financial reports, the information which must be provided in the reports, the requirements for filing the reports, and custody of, and public access to, the reports. Civil action and civil liability provisions allow actions to be brought for the failure to file the reports required or for the filing of false reports.

The act also sets up the Office of Government Ethics with a directory appointed by the president, with consent of the Senate for a term of five years. (5 U.S.C.A. App. 4 § 401). The director provides, in consultation with the Office of Personnel Management, the overall direction of EXECUTIVE BRANCH policies related to preventing conflicts of interest on the part of officers and employees of any executive agency. Upon the request of the director, each executive agency is obliged to make its services, personnel, and facilities available to the director to the greatest practicable extent for the performance

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