Code of Ethics for Elected Officials

A lot of elected officials, especially at the Federal level, have started using social media, some fairly heavily.  This has been met with mixed feelings.  Some people see this as increased government transparency, while others have seen this as political propaganda.  Either way, participation in social media presents a serious conflict of interest for elected officials.  While it definitely can and probably should be used to increase government transparency, it can also be used to influence people and to spread propaganda, misinformation, and even downright lies, and it has actually been used this way.

As such, we need a code of ethics for elected officials, that includes but is not limited to the use of social media.  I would like to suggest a set of ethical rules for elected officials.

1. Elected officials should always specify whether a social media post, video, recording, or other publication is being produced in an official capacity.  Ideally, elected officials should always use separate accounts for official and personal communications, and the personal accounts should not reference the elected office of the official in any way.
2. Social media content published in an official capacity should stick to facts.  It should not contain propaganda, personal opinions, campaign advertisements, promotion of political or personal agendas, or anything else not directly related to the job the person has been elected to.  Statements of intent to vote on a particular bill in a particular way are appropriate but should avoid any explanation except, "This is what my constituents want".  (And even that explanation might come back to bite you, if it turns out they don't want that.)
3. Official publications that contain information later discovered to be incorrect should be amended whenever possible, noting the error and resolution, and if it is not possible, an official retraction should be published as soon as the mistake is discovered, and reasonable effort shall be made to direct all past, present, and future consumers of the original publication to the retraction.
4. Official publications should generally be reviewed by advisors and/or peers before being published.
5. Official publications should adhere to any standards, regulations, and policies set by the government body the elected official is a member of.
6. Unofficial publications should avoid any and all implication that they might be official in nature or otherwise represent anything other than the personal views of the official, including but not limited to using a separate account for that does not mention the office of the user in the username, profile, or any other publicly accessible information associated with the account.
7. Unofficial publications should avoid accidentally or intentionally using the public profile, fame, wealth, or any other benefit afforded by the public office to endorse or promote any particular political agendas, and indeed, elected officials should generally limit unofficial publications to sharing facts and personal opinion in neutral ways that do not promote or otherwise argue in support of any particular position or platform, even if adherence to this rule feels like it hampers freedom of speech and freedom of expression.
8. Unofficial publications should not be produced or published during time an elected official may reasonably be expected to be working, including any time the body the official is a member of is in session, for bodies that are not active constantly.  For bodies that are constantly active (including the Executive Branch), officials should not produce or publish unofficial publications at any time where doing so would interfere with the work or take time away from the work that would cause even minor negative effects, and ideally any such personal projects should be worked on only during specifically scheduled time off (for example, vacations).
9. Elected officials should surrender access to any and all social media accounts used for official publications upon retirement (whether voluntary or through the loss of an election or expiration of a term limit) from the position.  Ideally, the account should transferred to the ownership of the government body the official was a member of, which will act as caretaker to preserve the account and its contents for consumption by the public.  If the official is later elected to office again, ownership may be returned for the duration of service.
10. Retired elected officials should continue to abide by the terms of this code of ethics with regards to their private social media accounts, with the exception that they may engage more fully in the endorsement of personal political opinions, so long as they continue to avoid using the fame and other benefits associated with having held public office to gain an unfair advantage over other figures who have not had the benefit of holding public office.
11. Retired and current elected officials should never take advantage of the benefits of holding or having held public office for profit or personal benefit of any kind, including the use of official publications for gaining advertisement revenue, the use of official publications in campaign advertisements, the use of official publications for endorsing or advancing personal political agendas (or personal agendas of any kind), the leverage of experience in elected office to claim any manner of authority or special expertise on any matter (including paid speaking engagements), or the engagement in any kind of compensated work for any entity that the official has accepted any form of lobbying from.

Each element of this code of ethics is designed to avoid specific problems that are common today, as outlined below.

1.  Many elected officials, especially those in Congress, are currently using their position to gain fame, for future personal benefit and for the purpose of advancing personal political agendas.  This is not the purpose of elected office, and it is a misuse of taxpayer money that pays the wages of these officials.  Separating official communications from personal communications will help regular citizens separate legitimate concerns related to the job from the personal politics and agendas of the officials.  Public office was never intended to be used as a stage from which to endorse a political platform or other personal agenda.  Public officials are elected to represent the will of the people, not to preach or impose upon the people their own wills.
2. As with 1, the separation of the job from personal opinions is important, and without that separation, elected officials can and do abuse their positions to promote their own platforms, instead of doing their job, which is to represent the will of the people.  The only valid reasoning for voting in a particular way on a bill is that it is what one's constituents want or is otherwise more consistent with the will of those who the official represents than the alternative.
3. Accuracy is critical to transparency.  The people cannot make informed choices when voting, if the information they have is not accurate and up to date.
4. Oversight is wise and necessary in ensuring this code of conduct is adhered to.  It is clear that not all elected officials understand the difference between personal opinion and their job.  Oversight may help them to learn that difference, and if it doesn't, at least it may prevent more egregious violations of this code of conduct.  Oversight will also help to catch factual errors before publication, avoiding the need for excessive retractions.
5. Again, oversight is wise and necessary.  This provides governing bodies with the ability to more narrowly define what is and is not appropriate in an official publication.  This includes censorship of sensitive material that could pose a security threat if published, as well as general rules of civility and propriety in official publications.  Official publications will reflect on the quality of the governing institutions, thus they have a right to regulate the nature of those publications.  (For example, a Representative angrily swearing in a statement about the President reflects very poorly on the House in general, as well as on her constituents and on the U.S. as a nation.)
6. The use of elected office to promote personal political agendas is a serious abuse of power that needs to be stopped.  Again, the purpose of elected office is to represent the will of the people, not to promote one's own political agendas.  Using the benefits of public office to help promote personal agendas is an abuse of power and a theft of taxpayer money.  No elected position should be used to gain an unfair advantage in promotion of personal agendas over those who do not hold any elected position.  To do so is unethical and undemocratic.
7. Merely seeing the title of an elected official in the username or profile text of an account could imply that the publication is official in nature, and it will definitely provide an unfair advantage based on the elected office of the person.  Those seeing an unofficial account for the first time, who do not already know the name of the official, should not be able to tell from the account that the account is owned by an elected official.  It is impossible to enforce complete fairness, as it is unreasonable to require elected officials to use pseudonyms for their personal accounts, but as much as possible, fair practices should be observed, which is why it is suggested that elected officials should generally avoid active promotion of personal agendas on their private accounts, even if doing so seems like it gives up certain rights.  (Note that it is also traditional for the President to release his or her tax records, despite the fact that the privacy of such personal records are generally regarded as protected by the Constitution, so this is not an unprecedented ethical rule.)
8. The time an elected official is being paid to work should never be used for personal activities.  Elected office is a job, and the wages payed to elected officials are payment for labor rendered.  An elected official who is working on personal projects during work time should rightly be fired, just like any other employee who did the same thing would.  It is completely and entirely inappropriate for any elected official to be spending paid work time on personal projects, and accepting full payment for work time partially spent on personal projects is theft against one's employer, in this case the American people.
9. Official publications of elected officials legally belong to the employer of the officials, which is the American people, and thus should be preserved for the use of the people as desired.  In addition, allowing retired officials to retain control of official accounts would allow them to abuse those accounts.  Thus, all official accounts that are not currently in active use should be preserved by the body those accounts are accountable to, both to minimize opportunity for abuse and to ensure the preservation and public availability of the contents of those accounts.  A government cannot remain transparent when ex-officials retain the power to destroy official publications.
10. Retiring does not absolve an official of ethical responsibilities.  Retired officials should not be restricted in public participation in political discourse and promotion of personal agendas, as they are no longer bound to the job of representing the will of the people, but they still should not be allowed to abuse or otherwise leverage their status as retired public officials to gain an unfair advantage over those who have not served in elected office.
11. Abuse of power of this nature is rampant in our government currently, and it interferes seriously with the democratic process.  It is common practice for elected officials to cultivate special relationships with for-profit businesses and other profitable organizations to create future opportunity for themselves once they leave public office.  This results in the drafting and passage of laws and policies designed specifically to benefit special interests, often at significant cost to the general public, purely for the personal benefit of the elected officials.  This is an abominable and wicked practice that undermines democracy, violates the will of the people, and causes significant harm to the people.  This should be regarded as blatant bribery, and all elected officials guilty of this practice should be impeached and thrown out of office, then tried for the high crime of bribery (and/or solicitation of bribery) and sentenced to long prison sentences, without options for house arrest, intermittent imprisonment (like nights or weekends only), or parole.  (And maybe if high profile, wealthy people actually had to pay the same price for their crimes as poor people, our prisons would be less cruel and abusive to prisoners.)  Elected officials should be legally and permanently barred from working for any company or organization they have ever been lobbied by, and they should also be barred from taking any sort of payment or compensation for any work they do that they would not have had without serving in an elected office.  In addition, any official content produced while in office was paid for and thus belongs to the people, making it a violation of copyright law to use it for personal profit or benefit without the express permission of the people.

The fact is, a significant amount of the corruption in our government could be quelled, merely by enforcing a code of conduct addressing these elements.  This does not exhaustively cover all possible forms of corruption (for instance, the practice of earmarking funds for states as a tacit bribe for the passage of some unpopular bill), but it covers some of the most destructive and most common types of and motivations for corrupt behavior.  Hopefully by restricting elected office from being an engine for politicians to promote their personal political platforms and build relationships with special interests for future profit, the motivation for corrupt people with ill intent to seek elected office will be significantly reduced, and the tendency toward corruption for those who originally had purer motives will be decreased significantly, giving us a more democratic government that is more concerned with the will of the people than with their own personal profit.