Advisory Opinions | City Ethics

Conflicts of Interest October 17, 2013

Negative Conflicts of Interest

Conflicts of interest are not always positive, any more than relationships are always positive. And conflicts are based on relationships. We tend to think of an official using his position to help a family member or business associate. But sometimes officials use their position to harm someone with…

Ethics Commissions & Administration October 16, 2013

The Need for Institutional Checks on Mishandling Conflicts

Six years ago, I wrote a blog post on apology (including full disclosure) in the medical context. Today's New York Times' "Invitation to a Dialogue" letter from a hospital executive takes this issue a step further to a consideration of the value of individual punishment vs. institutional change. Th…

October 15, 2013

No Enforcement Against the Complicit in a California Case

Court decisions, especially when combined with criminal enforcement of ethics violations, can be very harmful to local government ethics. The court in a Monterey County case involving a serious §1090 conflict of interest matter that officials were not only aware of, but appear to have helped create…

October 14, 2013

A Miscellany

Who Should Oversee Nepotism Rules? According to an article in the Stamford (CT) Advocate last week, Stamford's Board of Representatives voted to amend an anti-nepotism bill to instead require the city's human resources director to draft a nepotism policy. The sponsor of the amendment was quoted as …

October 9, 2013

Increased EC Authority and Access to Annual Disclosure in California

Some good news from California, which takes an odd, hybrid approach to local government ethics. It has a state ethics commission (the Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC)) that has limited authority over local officials in the areas of conflicts of interest and campaign finance. And the state…

Ethics Commissions & Administration October 1, 2013

EC Members and Ethics Advice

Is it too much to ask that an ethics commission member lead the way, set an example, with respect to the single most important aspect of a government ethics program: ethics advice? According to an article last week in the Winston-Salem Journal, a member of the North Carolina ethics commission ente…

September 11, 2013

An Entertaining Film About the Mishandling of a Conflict Situation

When I put in the DVD yesterday evening, I did not expect the movie Admission (2013; written by Karen Croner, based on a novel by Jean Hanff Korelitz, starring Tina Fey and Paul Rudd) to be a revelatory movie about the mishandling of conflicts of interest situations. But it is. Not in government (i…

September 10, 2013

Summer Reading: Richard Painter on Ethics Reform II

This is the second of three posts on how Richard W. Painter's recommendations for federal ethics reform in his book, Getting the Government America Deserves: How Ethics Reform Can Make a Difference (Oxford U.P., 2009), may be applied to local government ethics programs. Rulemaking At the federal le…

September 9, 2013

Summer Reading: Richard Painter on Ethics Reform I

Richard W. Painter's Getting the Government America Deserves: How Ethics Reform Can Make a Difference (Oxford U.P., 2009) may be about the federal executive branch ethics program, but this excellent book also has a lot to offer to local government ethics. This is the first of three blog posts about…

Ethics Commissions & Administration August 28, 2013

Ethics Advice, Power, and Ideology

Within Election Law Center blogger Christian Adams' recent ad hominem attack on me is an idea that is worth discussing. He said that, in requiring candidate committees to come to me for permission (what is commonly referred to as "ethics advice") when I was the administrator of a public campaign fi…

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