Dude, Where's My Car?

The City of Albuquerque has it!

Some of New Mexico's cities have a penchant for seizing vehicles, so much so that the State Legislature changed the law to prevent its municipalities from financially benefiting from civil forfeitures.  Albuquerque did not "get the memo," but they received a new one from U.S. District Court Judge James Browning on Monday.

Judge Browning found the City's vehicle forfeiture program unconstitutional.  Specifically:

"The Court concludes that the City of Albuquerque has an unconstitutional institutional incentive to prosecute forfeiture cases, because, in practice, the forfeiture program sets its own budget and can spend, without meaningful oversight, all of the excess funds it raises from previous years. Thus, there is a 'realistic possibility' that forfeiture officials’ judgment 'will be distorted by the prospect of institutional gain.'”

The case that precipitated the legal decision involved a woman who lent her car to her adult son.  The son was arrested for DUI and the City seized the car.  In a Kafka-esque twist the City apparently offered to sell the mother her car for $4,000 if she agreed to have it booted for a year-and-a-half.  So, an innocent woman lends her car to a family member.  The family member (allegedly) breaks the law and, in turn, a municipal government tries to extort $4,000 and an agreement to immobilize a car she is still making payments on?

Albuquerque has a Chief Administrative Officer: Sarita Nair, JD, MCRP.  Ms. Nair not only is an attorney, she is reportedly "AV-rated by Martindale Hubbell, and has been recognized by Best Lawyers, Southwest Super Lawyers, and Chambers & Partners USA."  So, how exactly does a municipal government with an annual budget of nearly $1 billion managed by a "super lawyer" end up running a program that flouts state law AND the Constitution?

I'll let economist Steven Landsburg provide the answer:

“Most of economics can be summarized in four words: “People respond to incentives.” The rest is commentary.”

Local governments are--contrary to the suspicions of some citizens--organizations comprised almost entirely of people.  Individually and collectively, those people respond to incentives.  And there is something more going on.  The average citizen is likely to recoil in horror hearing the story of an innocent woman having her car seized by the government.  The average third-grader would find it patently unfair.  But something happened in the City of Albuquerque, a change in the culture that allowed the unacceptable to become acceptable, commonplace, routine.

One of the jobs of the local government CAO is to remain ever watchful and vigilant of an organization's culture, to ask the difficult moral questions, to challenge complacency and the "this is the way we've always done it" trap.  And the wise CAO understand the power of Landsburg's observation.  We all respond to incentives, so it is critical that the structure of our organizations reward us for doing the right things.