It is very important the American people have faith in the government that rules them. It is the purpose of this paper to demonstrate how this faith is established and maintained through the practice of accountability on the part of public managers. To do this, it will first be shown how the actions of the American President, the highest and most visible public manager, have influenced the American people's perceptions of public officials. Next, an ethical justification will be established demonstrating the need for our public managers to be held to a higher standard than that expected of everyday Americans. This paper will then conclude by showing how demands for higher standards, and increased enforcement of these standards will lead to greater accountability, and thus regain and strengthen the American people's faith in their public managers.

One point to think about, that will be mentioned again later, is that the term accountability implies a sort of double standard. At face value, accountability means that public managers have to be held responsible for their actions. How the American people have grown to interpret this idea of accountability is that the public manager is responsible for his actions, his negligence to act, the actions of his staff, the actions of his family, and the actions of his friends. In short, the American people expect their public managers to be of exceptional character and to surround themselves with nothing less than other people of this same exceptional character; something most of them would find an unrealistic or painful expectation if placed upon them self.

In the last fifty years, American's opinions about their public managers have changed dramatically. To understand just how great the change has been, one need do nothing more than ask the people. Fifty years ago, when asked who they looked up to and would like to emulate, adolescents gave answers like George Washington, or Abraham Lincoln. When asked the same question today, adolescents give answers like Michael Jordan, or Ken Griffey, Jr. On top of that, being a politician, or any other public manager for that fact, in the eyes of many Americans is a four letter word. What ever happened to cause this shift? That is what are here to explore.

Fifty years ago, it was the year 1949. America, and the world, were freshly out of World War II, and Americans were basking in the feel good glory of victory. President Roosevelt, who had died four years earlier, had done wonders to turn the U.S. around from the economically struggling country it was when he first took office during the heights of the great depression. Through his superior domestic and foreign policy, President Roosevelt instilled in the American people arguably the strongest sense of pride they had felt since the days of the American Revolution. This feeling of euphoria lasted until and peeked during Kennedy's presidency in what is now referred to as "Camelot." But on a grave November afternoon, "Camelot" and the euphoria came crashing down.

President Kennedy's assassination marked the beginning of the down turn in American faith in America. His assassination, coupled with revealed government lies about the U.S. campaign in Vietnam, and then President Nixon's Watergate fiasco all set the stage for the current general distrust of our public managers and officials, and has set the stage for the general public to be easy swayed by all kinds of believable and other not so believable conspiracy theories. The general consensus seems to be, "they lied about that, what's to say they're not lying about this." Carter's weakness, and Reagan's Iran / Contra affair only helped to aggravate an already irritable situation; an irritable situation who's effects have trickled down to all levels of public management.

In light of these and more recent scandals, it seems like a very appropriate time to stop and reflect on just what exactly the role is that we want our public managers to play. This latest charade between Ken Starr, Monica Lewinski, and President Clinton has demonstrated not only the expectation, but the need by the American people for our public officials to act in accordance with a higher standard than that which the rest of American citizens are measured by. However, this raises ethical questions. Is it fair to expect our public officials to live by a higher standard than which we ourselves do, or should Americans learn to realize that they deserve the government they elect, the government that is a truer representation of who they are?

To answer this question, let us take a philosophical approach. The study of ethics is a branch of philosophical study that receives a lot of time and energy from many students of philosophy, as it should. Through the study of ethics, one could conceivably find a justification for any action, regardless of how Godly or heinous that action may be. As such, it is plainly evident that some ethical theories work better, which is to say they are more practical and applicable, than others. However weak the universal application of utilitarian ethics may be, it is an excellent tool to use when explaining why public managers should be held to a higher ethical and moral standard than the rest of American citizens.

Utilitarian ethics, simply put, states that the outcome which benefits the greatest number of people is the moral and right choice to make. Applied to our situation, it is in the best interest of the American people to hold American public officials to higher standards of conduct than would be expected from the average American citizen. Utilitarian ethics allows for the sacrifice of the individual for the betterment of the whole. In this case, the sacrifice comes on the part of the public official. To an extent, they are made less human and more society's puppet; made to dance and jig in that matter which best suits the people at any given point in time. But then again, the United States is run by a representative government. Officials are elected to look after the needs of their constituents. In a perfect world, the representatives would place the needs of their constituents in front of their own. In this world, all be it not perfect, the American citizen still expects that same level of representation.

At this point, we should take stock of what we've talked about. We've seen the change in public opinion over the past fifty years. We've speculated that this change in American opinion is the result of exposed scandal and lies on the part of our public officials. We've decided that our public managers should be held to a higher ethical standard than the rest of America's citizens. So now, that leads us into what to do about it. How are we going to fix this problem and bring accountability back to public management?

All across the country, in most public, and many larger private businesses, companies are setting standards of conduct (ethics) that they expect from all of their employees, management through clerk. These corporate ethics have been popping up in attempts to increase productivity and decrease incidents that might cause embarrassment to the company. These ethical standards force employees to be accountable for their actions. Violations of a company's code of ethical conduct leads to various levels of disciplinary action against the violator, and in extreme or repeated cases, the termination of that violator's employment with the company. This setting of ethical standards and disciplining for violations of the set standards, coupled with judicial enforcement has lead to increased accountability in both the public and private sector.

Funny enough, although many public managers are held to a code of ethical conduct by their company or organization, the most powerful public manager, the President, is held to no such written code. There is no written "Presidential Code of Ethics" in existence. So, it's difficult to hold the President accountable for the rightness or wrongness of his actions, when all we have to judge him by is a set of laws relatively devoid of ethics.

In drafting a set of ethics by which the President should act, there are three very important areas to cover; the actions of the President, the appearance of action on the part of the President, and the actions of those with whom the President associates. While the "Ethics Manual For Members, Officers, And Employees Of The U.S. House Of Representatives" vaguely touches on these important requirements in its Rules One and Two, a much better standard by which the President, or any other public manager should be held can be found in the Indiana Rules of Court, Code of Judicial Conduct, Canons 2.A and 5.A(3)(a) which respectively state:

"A judge shall respect and comply with the law and shall act at all times in a manner that promotes public confidence in the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary."

"A candidate, including an incumbent judge, for a judicial office: shall maintain the dignity appropriate to judicial office and act in a manner consistent with the integrity and independence of the judiciary, and shall encourage members of the candidate's family to adhere to the same standards of political conduct in support of the candidate as apply to the candidate."

The power of these two rules is enhanced by the commentary attached to Canon 2.A which states:

"Public confidence in the judiciary is eroded by irresponsible or improper conduct by judges. A judge must avoid all impropriety and appearance of impropriety. A judge must expect to be the subject of constant public scrutiny. A judge must therefore accept restrictions on the judge's conduct that might be viewed as burdensome if applied to the ordinary citizen."

Substitute "public manager" or "President" for the words "judge" or "judiciary" in these rules and they make a pretty good foundation upon which a good set of ethical codes could be created for the President, members of Congress, or any other public manager.

Keeping in compliance with the set course of this paper, we will apply these rules and commentary to the American Presidency. At face value, Canon 2.A states very clearly that the President should act at all times in a manner that promotes public confidence in the integrity of the Presidency. This is something the House Rules try to require of House members through their code of conduct with Rule 1 which states: "A Member, officer, or employee of the House of Representatives shall conduct himself at all times in a manner which shall reflect creditably on the House of Representatives." However, the House's language is less forceful, and thus not as convincing or compelling. Of this first rule (Canon 2.A), to which the commentary applies, the issue of the double standard is addressed. The judicial Canons justify this double standard by pointing out the public nature of the job. The Canons themselves say that this is how it has to be, because it is in the benefit of the whole; an ethical standard already defined in this paper as utilitarianism.

The second Canon noted above, Canon 5.A(3)(a), if applied to the President, would go well beyond holding just the President responsible for his actions; it holds all Presidential candidates as well as their families responsible for living up to these ethical standards. Considering all of the scandal that surrounded President Clinton during his campaign, the American people had good indication that this man lived by lower ethical standards than should be required of someone in, or running for the position of President. If there had been a set of ethical standards for the Presidency, similar to the ones for Indiana judges, President Clinton quite possibly would never have been allowed to formally run for the Presidency of the United States, an action that would have saved the county great embarrassment and further social erosion in the future.

However, given the fact that he was allowed to run, and he did win the election, twice, we have to look at his actions while in office. Even with him in office, if a set of ethical standards similar to these where in place, it is most definite that President Clinton would have been removed from office in at least three instances, to date. While he has never been convicted of anything, the White Water, Paula Jones, and perjury allegations against President Clinton have all brought the appearance of impropriety to the Presidency; something that time and time again has been proven to greatly reduce the public trust in a public manager, and something that would be punishable by the small list of ethical standards listed within this paper.

These two Canons listed above, are examples of the type of ethical codes of conduct all public management positions need, especially the American Presidency. Of course these two standards would not be the only ones in a Presidential, or public manager's code of ethics, but they would definitely be the foundation for any other standards to later be set. While it was not the intent of this paper to pick on the Presidency, or to give the impression that the American Presidency is the only public management position in existence, the reader must concede that the Presidency is the most powerful and visible public management position in America, and as such serves to act as the standard by which all other public managers are to be held and judged. The actions of the President, and consequences of those actions, cause a trickle down effect that perverts the entire system of public management. As such, reform must come from the top down, if it is to be effective. If the American people want their public managers to be held accountable for their actions, they must first hold their President accountable. This means putting in writing minimum ethical standards the people demand their President live by. After all, the President cannot be held accountable for rules that don't exist.

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