#8 - Guideline: It is improper for public officials to

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

Strengthen—PR. The correct answer choice is (E)

This question involves applying a guideline to a set of facts. The guideline provides that “it is improper for public officials to influence the award of contracts or to perform other acts related to their office in a way that benefits themselves,” and that the officials should avoid even the appearance of doing so.

The stimulus applies this guideline to the circumstance in which the mayor of Greenville urged the award of the city’s street maintenance contract to a company owned and operated by one of the mayor’s relatives. And the company needed this contract—without the contract award, the company would have been in serious financial trouble. Applying the guideline to this set of facts, the author concludes that Greenville’s mayor acted improperly.

However, there is a problem with this conclusion. The guideline was restricted to the public officials performing acts related to their office in a way that benefits themselves. However, Greenville’s mayor influenced the award of the street maintenance contract to benefit one of his relatives. While the situation envisioned by the guideline and the mayor’s case are similar, they are not identical.

The question stem tells us that this is a Strengthen—Principle question. Our prephrase is that the correct answer choice will fix this problem by extending the guideline to include a prohibition on benefiting one’s family.

Answer choice (A): The argument does not involve a comparison in standards between public officials and private individuals, so this choice is irrelevant to the conclusion.

Answer choice (B): This choice is incorrect, because the guideline was concerned not with how to award publicly funded contracts, but rather with what constitutes improper behavior by public officials.

Answer choice (C): This choice does not make the guideline more applicable to the facts, because the weakness in the application was the issue of benefiting self versus benefiting others, not a distinction between the mere appearance of impropriety versus the actual commission of an improper act.

Answer choice (D): The stimulus had nothing to do with the problem of risk in contracting with a financially troubled business. Although we were told the relative’s business was close to being in financial trouble, that information was important only because it provided a motive for the mayor to act unethically.

Answer choice (E): This is the correct answer choice. By providing that benefiting one’s family or friends should be regarded as benefiting oneself, this choice extends the conduct prohibited by the guideline (i.e., a public official using his office to benefit himself) to reach the facts set out in the application (i.e., a public official using his office to benefit his family).

[netherlands]

Hi there PS,

I still can't seem to understand what questions with guidelines/applications are asking me to do . Would you mind explaining this problem to me?

Thanks!

[BethRibet]

Hi Netherlands,

Happy to help, thanks for writing.

The idea of the guideline is that it's stating a general rule, which can be used to evaluate multiple cases. The application is the specific case, in which the rule is being used. So for instance, a general rule might be "respect your elders". The specific case might be "offer to escort someone older with mobility difficulties across the street".

A particular application of a rule is not always a perfect fit however, and this is certainly the case in the practice of law, where some part of what we are evaluating or arguing is whether the law was applied correctly in a specific instance, or how it should be applied in a particular case.

So in question #8, you are asked to identify a principle, which if true, most helps ensure that the application of the guideline/rule was correct in this specific instance.

The original guideline states that in awarding contracts, one should avoid even appearing to take actions which benefit oneself. The application states that by awarding a contract to a relative, the mayor violated this guideline (i.e. acted improperly). The unspoken assumption in the application is that benefiting one's relatives falls under the umbrella of benefiting oneself. If for instance, one were trying to argue with the application, you might suggest that the relative in question could very well be a jerk, who the mayor didn't like and therefore s/he had no stake in the outcome (we don't all love every relative we have!), or that the mayor held no shares in the contractor's business, and therefore didn't benefit personally. To correct that flaw, the principle stated in E (the right answer choice), indicates that if you benefit your relatives, you are benefiting yourself. This principle makes the application of the original guideline very solid -- if you are not supposed to benefit yourself when awarding contracts AND benefiting one's relatives is benefiting yourself, then indeed, it seems hard to dispute that the mayor behaved improperly.

Alternately, by process of elimination:
In contrast, A perhaps justifies the intent of the guideline, but not its application to this case. B doesn't help ensure that the application was correct, since it may be true, even though the contract was awarded to the mayor's relative. C again, doesn't tell us whether the guideline was applied properly to this case. And D introduces a new condition ("excessive risk") which we don't really have a way to evaluate relative to the original guideline.

Hope this helps!

Beth

[netherlands]

Ok, that makes sense. So in a sense it's almost like a strengthening question?

There is a rule - we see how the rule was applied - and answer choice E further supports the application of the rule.

Thank you!