CONFERENCES & EVENTS

Eroding Ethics: Rollbacks on Accountability

August 7, 2025
7:30 p.m.–9:00 p.m. ET
WEBINAR

RSVP FOR THE ZOOM WEBINAR >

Register to hear panelists Delaney Marsco, Kedric Payne, and Hugo Balta discuss the evolving impact of leadership changes within key federal oversight agencies, including the Office of Government Ethics, the Office of Special Counsel, and various Inspectors General, and how these shifts may affect efforts to uphold ethical standards and address conflicts of interest. This event is organized by the Network for Responsible Public Policy.

SPEAKERS

DELANEY MARSCO is Director, Ethics at Campaign Legal Center, where she works on CLC’s ethics watchdog and policy reform efforts at all levels of government. Her work helps hold public officials accountable to the voters and shapes stronger ethics rules and laws across the country. Delaney’s work encompasses a wide range of ethics issues, including congressional stock trading reform and conflicts of interest in the federal executive branch. Her watchdog work has led to numerous investigations into ethics violations by members of Congress and senior executive branch appointees, and her expertise is regularly relied on for ethics reform legislation. Delaney’s expert analysis has been featured in national print news publications, including The Washington Post, The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, and she has appeared on television and radio programs on CNBC, C-SPAN and NPR.

KEDRIC PAYNE is the Vice President, General Counsel, and Senior Director of Ethics at Campaign Legal Center.  He specializes in government ethics, lobbying law, and election law. Mr. Payne began his career in private practice and has since served in the three branches of federal government. Prior to joining CLC, he advised on executive branch ethics laws as a Deputy General Counsel at the U.S. Department of Energy. He also enforced legislative branch ethics laws as Deputy Chief Counsel of the Office of Congressional Ethics. He clerked in the federal court for the Southern District of New York and later counseled lobbyists and government contractors on compliance with federal, state, and local ethics laws at Skadden Arps.  He graduated from Yale University and the University of Pennsylvania Law School, where he was Editor-in-Chief of the Law Review and later an adjunct political law professor.

MODERATOR

HUGO BALTA is an Adjunct Professor at the University of Washington and Columbia College Chicago, where he teaches journalism courses that emphasize multimedia storytelling. Balta is currently the Executive Editor of the Fulcrum, a national cross-partisan news publication, engaging citizens in evolving government to better meet the needs of all people. He is also the Publisher of the Latino News Network with an editorial focus on covering the social determinants of health and democracy. Balta is an award-winning news veteran whose experience includes leadership roles in NBC, MSNBC, Telemundo, CBS, ESPN, and ABC networks. He previously worked at the Chicago Reporter as Executive Editor, WBBM News Radio as Editor, and WTTW Chicago as News Director. Balta received the 2024 Cecilia Vaisman Award from Northwestern University Medill School of Journalism. He is the only person to serve twice as President of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists (NAHJ). He was inducted into the organization’s Hall of Fame in 2016. A B.A. graduate of Seton Hall University, Balta has completed Executive Leadership programs at Columbia University, Graduate School of Journalism, and the University of Virginia, Darden School of Business. He is also an accredited Solutions Journalism Network trainer.

EVENT CO-SPONSORS

Network for Responsible Public Policy
The Academy of Political Science
The Puffin Foundation
The McCourtney Institute for Democracy