A year after one of their colleagues got arrested by the FBI for accepting bribes, Orange County’s Board of Supervisors are looking to beef up their ethics guidelines. 

But there’s one big caveat – the proposed rules still don’t carry any harsh consequences like the power to remove a county supervisor from office short of a criminal indictment, raising questions on how much the county can police itself. 

It’s an issue that county leaders have spent the last year wrestling with after former county Supervisor Andrew Do was arrested for and eventually pleaded guilty to accepting over $800,000 in bribes to reroute over $12 million in contracts to a nonprofit that allegedly ran off with the money. 

[Read: Former OC Supervisor Ordered to Repay $878,000 for Role in Bribery Scheme] 

At Tuesday’s 9:30 a.m. meeting, OC Supervisors are expected to consider overhauling the ethics code.

After Do’s house was raided by the FBI last year, many supervisors and other local politicians called for his removal, but found they didn’t have the power to kick him out of office.

“We can’t force him to step down, but we can publicly condemn the conduct we see swirling around his office,” said supervisor Vicente Sarmiento when he voted to censure Do last September. “We have to be held to a higher ethical and moral standard and not just to a baseline legal standard.” 

Do ultimately stuck around for another two months before resigning ahead of signing his plea deal with federal prosecutors. 

The disgraced former supervisor is expected to begin his five-year prison term by Aug. 15.

What Does the Proposed New Code Do? 

Orange County’s code of ethics has been around since 1993, and applies to both elected officials and county staff. 

But most of the code can’t be enforced by the county’s Campaign Finance and Ethics Commission outside of forcing lobbyists to register who they work for and preventing county officials from using the county’s property for their own personal use. 

Those restrictions remain in place under the proposed new code of ethics, which also added a requirement that county supervisors sign a copy of the code when they are sworn into office and vow not to act for personal gain. 

If the ethics overhaul is adopted, the only potential penalties supervisors and county employees could face for violating the code is an HR investigation or citation, with county staff also able to take the problem public if they ask the board of supervisors to review it. 

The updates to the code also added new protections for whistleblowers, requiring that county higher-ups not interfere with employees looking to report malfeasance. 

But many Orange County workers have said they don’t trust the countywide fraud hotline, saying they’ve faced repercussions for reporting misconduct in the past on what was supposed to be a secure line. 

[Read: Can OC Workers Really Depend on the County Fraud Hotline?]

County Supervisor Janet Nguyen defended the new proposal in a Thursday interview, saying that the consequences will come from prosecutions and that it’s not on the county to implement those penalties, just to make it easier for people to report wrongdoing. 

“That’s really where the meat is right when it comes to dealing with individuals like Andrew Do,” Nguyen said.“We’ll safeguard the county.” 

County Supervisor Vicente Sarmiento disagreed, saying he was “disappointed” by the lack of consequences laid out in the ethics code. 

“Having a stronger code of ethics is only one half of the equation; we must also have consequences attached to violations to make true progress,” Sarmiento wrote. “While this proposal inches us forward, we still have a long road ahead.” 

Jodi Balma, a professor of political science at Fullerton College, argues the proposed changes aren’t enough, and that the existing culture of “deference to elected officials” encourages malfeasances because people don’t want to go up against them. 

“I understand why the county CEO isn’t going to crack down and say follow every single procedure when it’s a supervisor’s staff telling you to break the rules,” Balma said in a Thursday interview. “But they should.” 

She also argued elected officials and the public have to find a way around that. 

“Absent the system working, then we have to find an alternate way and that includes the board of supervisors. It includes putting teeth into the ethics commission,” Balma said. “There are people working for the county who know who these people are and they either tried to ring the alarm bell … and were shut down or they have seen what happens to people who bring up problems.”

Chapman University political science professor Mike Moodian also called for more consequences on the ethics policies, praising the moves supervisors made but calling it a small step. 

“Oftentimes in government, drastic change does not happen overnight. Hopefully this is the first step among multiple steps to try and enforce a stronger ethical code,” Moodian said. “It’s not enough to have rules, we need consequences. Otherwise we’re just hoping that elected officials will hold themselves accountable.”