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Has your city’s government grown up yet, ethically speaking?

This isn't as silly a question as it sounds. All of us develop morally, just as we develop physically and intellectually and emotionally. We just don’t see our height grow or get university degrees or get married and have children, ethically speaking.

The same is true of municipal governments, according to James S. Bowman in his essay “The Ethical Professional,” which appears in...

Not one of the recent books in my ethics library cites Jane Jacobs’ 1993 work, Systems of Survival: A Dialogue on the Moral Foundations of Commerce and Politics. The citations I found on-line do not include any about government ethics. This is a big loss for the government ethics community, because Jacobs, who died a couple of years ago, gave us a lot to think about. And we’ve been missing out.

Jacobs’ book (in the form of a dialogue among a group of people) sets out two...

I would like to nominate the new film Charlie Wilson’s War, a Mike Nichols film starring Tom Hanks, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams, and Julia Roberts, for the City Ethics Top Ten Ethics Films list.

Charlie Wilson is a multi-term congressman whose principal activities are drinking, diddling, and (a distant third) deal-making. He happens to also become the major force behind U.S. support for the Afghan mujahideen against...

In a very interesting step recently, the "Zionsville Town Council approved 5-0 Monday, Dec. 3, an expanded conflict of interest policy that includes a clause urging council members to recuse themselves from any vote involving a campaign contributor."

It is natural for a current or former firefighter to be interested in serving on a fire commission, or a current or former teacher in serving on a school board. But is there an ongoing conflict of interest in doing so?

The question arose on the Milford, Connecticut school board recently. Three members are former school teachers who held union leadership positions.

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It seems so mean-spirited to talk about the conflicts of interest that arise from politicians’ charitable activities, but the revelations about the Clinton Foundation show, in big numbers, what happens so often, in smaller numbers, across the country.

There are limits on how much money one can give to a candidate. But there are no...