Sophisticating up the whining

New Orleans's new Inspector General, Robert Cerasoli arrived in town with a promise to encourage more "sophisticated" corruption under his watch. So far he seems to be demonstrating a knack for engaging in the good ol' unrefined public whining already in bountiful supply among local public figures. Cerasoli, who operates his tiny office out of a cubicle in the Loyola University Library, has spent the past few days blowing what appears to be an easily resolvable matter of staffing into a very public and unnecessary clash with the City Attorney's office.

Cerasoli had asked for permission to hire independent attorneys with no connection to the city Law Department in order to avoid some obvious potential conflicts of interest. In response, the City Attorney issued a memo that didn't specifically deny this request, but did point out that it would require some clarification or revision of the law that defines the IG's office.

From yesterday's T-P:

The memorandum, signed by City Attorney Penya Moses-Fields, said a section of the City Charter cited in the proposed law does not authorize the inspector general "to employ general legal counsel," only "special counsel" to handle specific issues. Only a handful of agencies, such as the Sewerage & Water Board and the Civil Service Commission, are authorized to have full-time outside attorneys.

The Ethics Review Board, the panel appointed in December 2006 to hire an inspector general, is authorized to "retain counsel," but Moses-Fields' memo noted that the proposed new law, like the original 2006 version, specifies that the office of the inspector general "is operationally independent" of the ethics board as well as of the council and the mayor's office.

"It is not feasible for the IG to receive legal counsel from the Ethics Review Board if the IG is to remain 'operationally independent' from" the board, the memo said.

One way to resolve the problem would be to amend the law to specify that being "operationally independent" would not prevent the ethics board and the inspector general from sharing attorneys, legal experts said.

Cerasoli then threw a minor hissy fit publicly accusing the City Attorney of having a "conscience of corruption". Talk about swatting at flies with a Buick. While Cerasoli is technically correct in asserting that his office should be allowed to hire independent legal counsel, his McCarthyesque tactics of plastering people with vague epithets which contain the word "corruption" is troubling. It is not unlike Bobby Jindal's baseless insinuations against his Gubernatorial opponents through the use of the term "old corrupt crowd".

Not only is this kind of childish grandstanding inappropriate, it also calls into question Cerasoli's ability to effectively monitor municipal operations. Should he continue to hammer away at anyone who won't give him exactly what he wants exactly when he wants it he could create a situation where he either has too many unnecessary enemies or is generally not taken seriously enough to do his job.

In other words, rooting out political corruption may take more sophistication than the new Inspector General is himself possessed of.