Ohio Group Calls for Probe of Traficant's CCA Agreement

An Ohio citizen interest group wants the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct to determine if Rep. James Traficant Jr. (D-Ohio) violated government ethics rules by signing an agreement to help Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) build two private prisons in his district.

Ohio Citizen Action, a 150,000-member nonpartisan group, contends Traficant's agreement violates the Code of Ethics for Government Service. Rule 6 of the code states, “Make no private promises of any kind binding upon the duties of office, since a Government employee has no private word which can be binding on public duty.”

“Our basic question is, who is he accountable to?” asks Jennifer O’Donnell, head of Citizen Action’s Akron office. “Is it to this private company that he signed a memo of understanding with, or is it with his constituents?”

AFSCME Pres. Gerald W. McEntee and Ronald C. Alexander, president of the Ohio Civil Service Employees Association/AFSCME Local 11 and an International vice president, have both denounced Traficant’s agreement with CCA.

“When prisons are privatized, public safety is compromised,” Alexander wrote in a letter to the congressman. “CCA’s facility in Youngstown, which you would expand under this agreement, has a safety record that ranks among the worst in Ohio history.”

Traficant defended his actions in a July 8 letter to O’Donnell, which she provided to ACU News.

“Working to bring local officials together with private companies interested in creating jobs is not unethical nor is it counter to the public interest,” Traficant wrote. “The only thing that sets this initiative apart from others is the fact that I was able to secure an agreement in writing from CCA.”

O’Donnell disputes that argument. Traficant “did not have the authority to actually make those kinds of agreements, and so we feel like he’s acting like an agent of the corporation,” she explains.