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Complaints/ Investigations/Hearings

Enforcement & Complaints November 16, 2015

Attacking Those Who Make Ethics Allegations

Several of the women who accused Bill Cosby of sexual misconduct toward them have filed defamation suits, based on his conduct and, especially, on the conduct of his attorneys, who not only stated Cosby's denial of sexual misconduct, but also went on the attack against the accusing women. This situ…
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Enforcement & Complaints March 1, 2015

Ethics Complaints and Commendations

Across the country, requests for citizen complaints provide not only for complaints, but also for commendations. I happened to notice one of these when I was in the nation's capital this weekend, and it got me wondering why this is not done with respect to government ethics complaints and hotline r…
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Enforcement & Complaints August 22, 2014

Criminal vs. Ethics Enforcement of Lobbying Laws: A Case in Massachusetts

There are several problems with the settlement the Massachusetts AG reached last week with a lobbying firm that the AG alleged had entered into an illegal contingency fee agreement with a hospital. According to the AG's press release, the lobbying firm would be paid a percentage of funds paid to th…
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Ethics Commissions & Administration July 23, 2014

The Problems with an Executive's Ethics Commission

The big news in the government ethics world today is the investigative piece in the New York Times about New York governor Andrew Cuomo's interference in the work of the Moreland Commission he created to investigate corruption in the state government and to recommend reforms to prevent such corrupt…
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July 21, 2014

American Government Ethics Enforcement by . . . Russia

According to an Associated Press article this weekend, Jim Moran, a congressman from Virginia, was banned from entering Russia supposedly for a series of financial misdeeds. These supposed misdeeds, as delineated in Moran's Wikipedia page, include ethics and ethics-related criminal allegations that…
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Enforcement & Complaints July 14, 2014

Should Legislator-Lobbyist Communications Be Subject to the Legislative Immunity Privilege?

The Speech or Debate Clause of the U.S. Constitution protects activities within the "legislative sphere" from being heard outside the legislature, and prevents the introduction of evidence of legislative activity in any such hearing. A recent brief from the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee in S.…
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Conflicts of Interest April 1, 2014

Is Motive Relevant to Lobbying?

Rarely is a non-politician celebrity the subject of a local government ethics matter. So with David Beckham the subject of a Miami-Dade County ethics commission investigative report last week, and with important issues to boot [pun intended], this is an impossible matter to pass by. Initiating Cont…
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March 29, 2014

More on Florida's Ethics Reform Bills

In a blog post ten days ago, I predicted that Florida state senator Joe Abruzzo, the sponsor of SB 1474, would realize that the newly amended bill would not do what he really wanted and make the appropriate changes, so that the amended SB 1474 would be consistent with HB 1315. And so he did. He has…
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Ethics Commissions & Administration March 6, 2014

Government Lawyers: Function or Membership?

"Why hire a lawyer to do an internal investigation? It’s because you get the privileges. Otherwise, you’d save a little money and hire a consultant or accountant." These are the wise words of Bruce A. Green, Director of the Louis Stein Center for Law and Ethics at Fordham Law School, as quoted in t…
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Enforcement & Complaints February 25, 2014

Non-Substantive Considerations for Dismissing Ethics Complaints

Why is it so hard for officials, personally or in drafting ethics codes, to let an ethics commission do its work, dismissing complaints that lack validity (i.e., that do not state an ethics violation by someone under the ethics program's jurisdiction or for which there is insufficient evidence)? Wh…
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