There is an assumption held by people involved in government ethics that putting one’s personal interests ahead of the public interest is bad, that a healthy democracy depends on government officials working for the public interest rather than for themselves.

But not everyone holds this view. In fact, the prevalence of the opposite view provides a great deal of support to unethical conduct, especially at the local government level.

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How harmful can it be for a potential contractor to give money to the favored charities of someone who oversees a county’s finances? And how harmful can it be for a county official to work with people he trusts, rather than competitively bidding out the county’s business?

The answer to both questions, given by the disaster that's hit Jefferson County, Alabama, home to the city of Birmingham, is a lot.

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Ethics problems in Louisiana have shown up in this blog several times, so it’s heartening to be able to report that Louisiana is now putting into law a series of ethics improvements, some of which apply to local governments. For example, this week Gov. Jindal signed bills allowing local ethics entities to issue subpoenas and eliminated a hoophole, I mean loophole, allowing people to give...

“Ethics” is an unfortunate name for what appears in government ethics codes. When people think about ethics, they think about right and wrong, about moral obligations, about being honest and upright, about the Golden Rule.

This isn’t what government ethics deals with. Government ethics deals with a limited area of conduct: conflicts of interest. And most people don’t realize this, or understand conflicts of interest.

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The ethics rules of the Minnesota State Senate limit conflicts of interest to instances where a bill would provide a financial benefit to a senator or his or her employer that is not shared by other similarly situated individuals or firms. This is a common standard.

According to an article in today's Star Tribune, a Minnesota senator brought to the ethics committee two bills she had sponsored...

If anyone questions the value of advice regarding municipal ethics issues, look at these statistics from the Atlanta Ethics Office.

66% of ethics complaints filed in 2007 alleged use of city property.
3% of the requests for advice in 2007 involved use of city property.

If only people would ask. At least, Atlanta has an Ethics Officer to ask.

My guess is that people who want to make use of city property don’t want to be told they can’t. They know the answer, so they...