Good afternoon, my name is Sekou Biddle and in addition to being a concerned citizen of the District of Columbia I have the pleasure of having served the residents as a
member of the DCPS Board of Education, DC State Board of Education and as an At-Large member of the Council of the District of Columbia. Let me first of all thank the Chair and this committee for holding this roundtable
on The Board of Ethics and Government Accountability Establishment and

Comprehensive Ethics Reform Amendment Act of 2011. It is high time for comprehensive ethics reform in the District of Columbia. There is room, of course, for strengthening rules and regulations regarding ethics.My purpose here today, however, is not to strengthen a rule, but to abolish a practice. I believe we should entirely abolish Constituent Service Funds. This practice has taken us down a dangerous road. It says to citizens that there is a short cut to the delivery of appropriate services. It says to office holders there is a shortcut to benefiting certain citizens and causes. Short cuts do not solve problems. And solving problems is the key purpose of holding public office.

Either the District government should meet our needs in some systematic way, or there should be appropriate non-profit agencies rising up to systematically meet that need. The hit-or-miss application of constituent service funding may offer temporary relief and may make some office holders feel temporarily responsive. But these
temporary fixes cause more harm than good.

And the greatest harm is the creeping cancer that eats away at the integrity of political office holders and the confidence the public has in them. In my own brief experience as a Council Member, I found more people calling to offer contributions for my Constituent Service Fund than calls to obtain funds.

Having a slush fund furnished by individuals and organizations seeking to gain influence and access and to arbitrarily reward individuals and groups outside our standard systems of care feeds that cancer. We have to ask where this system takes us. If it takes us to a good place, let’s double the limit. If it takes us to a bad place, it doesn’t help to slow us down. We need to not go there at all.

We have a good example to follow.

During my four years of service on the DC Public Schools Board of Education and DC State Board of Education I dealt directly with constituent needs on a daily basis. DCPS Board Members are legally prohibited from maintaining constituent services funds. Board members must focus on finding solutions to problems that arise and
assisting residents in connecting with the appropriate agency that can directly meet their need. Over the years I worked diligently to solve problems on behalf of residents in need and never had the access to funds to pay to make the problem go away.

In my experience, in that rare instance when an individual came looking for money we were able to identify their need and put them in touch with the right government or nonprofit agency that could address their need. In my opinion this is essence of what our constituent services functions should look like. Once again I call for the abolition of so-called constituent services funds. The real focus for this Council and this government must remain on meeting the needs of every resident, not just the needs of those that are politically connected through money –
either donating or receiving.

Thank You.