One of the biggest little problems in government ethics is the inability to filter out very minor violations, which can be dealt with either by dismissing the complaint or by requiring, say, an additional training course. It is a waste of limited time and resources to investigate and hold hearings on minor violations. An EC needs to be able to use its judgment to decide when a violation is not worth investigating.

Although it is hard to define what is a minor, or de minimis, violation, it is important to provide for EC discretion where they exist, either in an ordinance provision or an ethics commission regulation. This discretion should not be left to advisory opinions; if it does originate there, it should quickly be added to the EC's regulations or to the ordinance).

Let me take a logical approach to the topic of government ethics proceeding confidentiality before I look at what has been happening in Utah this last week.

There's a lot of ethics news from San Diego today. First, the judge in the San Diego campaign finance case has clarified his ruling.

Second, the case involving the former president of the Center City Development Corp. is going to a hearing before the San Diego ethics commission next week. The allegations of the EC's general counsel list 34 counts of influencing a municipal decision when it was reasonably foreseeable that the decision would have a material financial impact on the former CCDC president's economic interests. The 34 counts are instances of her participation in matters where she is alleged to have had a conflict.

Special Counsel Robert S. Bennett's report on the District of Columbia council's earmark grants and personal services contracts was made public yesterday by the Washington City Paper. Before discussing Bennett's recommendations, I should disclose that City Ethics was asked by the D.C. council to advise them on related ethics issues, and we met shortly with two of Mr. Bennett's associates, but were not involved in any way in the investigation or preparation of the Bennett report.

It's an excellent report, and its recommendations, especially regarding council earmark grants, are must reading in any city that allows or is contemplating this sort of grant. The earmark recommendations start on p. 97 of the report (p. 100 of the PDF file).

Update: February 19, 2010 (see below)

This blog post is about Chicago, and things are more complicated in Chicago than in other American municipalities. So please read slowly and carefully.

According to an article in yesterday's Chicago Tribune, the first deputy in the mayor's Office of Compliance resigned a few weeks after he and the office's executive director were found by the city's inspector general to have mishandled a 2008 sexual harassment complaint (e.g., they tried to find the accused another city job). The IG recommended that the mayor suspend the two men for thirty days without pay.

After all I've written about the immunity courts have given legislators from enforcement actions by ethics commissions, I now can write about a court decision that gives ethics commissions and their staff immunity from suits by respondents in ethics enforcement actions. The respondent in this case, however, is not a legislator, but a losing candidate for Philadelphia district attorney. See a recent blog post for more about the ethics proceeding.

The Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas decision, McCaffery v. Creamer (January 28) (attached; see below), is important to protect EC members and staff from what the court calls the "distraction and expense associated with obviously retaliatory lawsuits."