It's Attack the Ethics Commission week once again, this time in New York State. According to an April 16 article in the Albany Times-Union, a mayor from one party filed a complaint against the deputy majority leader of the New York Senate, who is a member of the other party. The complaint is included below the article, and a statement by the mayor, about the filing, is quoted.

Fast forward to May 15, when the senate majority leader accused the state ethics commission of leaking the commission's letter to the respondent. What important information could possibly be in the letter to the respondent that was not already in the complaint?

Today, the New York Times ran a length investigatory report on Walmart's extensive bribery of local Mexican officials intended to rush through permits and zoning approvals, reduce environmental impact fees, and gain the allegiance of these officials.

The Independence of Investigators
The report raises a few important local government ethics issues. One is the independence of investigators. A preliminary investigation was done by Walmart's home investigation unit, but when it recommended an extensive investigation, Walmart executives turned the investigation over to Walmart de Mexico executives implicated in the bribery scheme. This was despite advice from Walmart International's general counsel that, “The wisdom of assigning any investigative role to management of the business unit being investigated escapes me.”

According to the blog of Kansas City, MO's mayor, Sly James, the KC Commission on Ethics Reform will be holding a public hearing tomorrow on its draft ethics code.

It's clear from the draft that the commission made excellent use of the City Ethics Model Code. The result is a good draft that falls short in a few very important areas.

Most important, the ethics commission would be selected by the mayor. The mayor would even select who the chair is, something that is ordinarily left to a board or commission. Any time the commission is seen as letting off the mayor or a mayoral ally, or coming down hard on a mayoral opponent, it will undermine the public's trust in the ethics program. There would be a big conflict at the heart of a program designed to prevent conflicts and to gain the public's trust in its city government. Ethics commission independence, real and perceived, is the single most important part of an ethics program. It is the foundation on which everything else stands.

Former Maricopa County, AZ county attorney Andrew Thomas (with one of his assistants) was disbarred on Tuesday on numerous counts related to bringing false charges against other county officials over a period of years, according to an article in yesterday's Arizona Republic. According to Prof. Bennett Gershman of Pace University, "This is a huge victory for good-government people and people who believe that prosecutors should be accountable for misconduct."

But it is a bigger victory for those who believe government attorneys should be held accountable for their misconduct, whether or not they are prosecutors. Government attorneys are rarely held to account for providing poor ethics advice, or poor advice on any topic. They are rarely held to account for wearing multiple hats and failing to withdraw when their roles are in conflict.

A few days too late for St. Patrick's Day, today's Irish Examiner has a wonderful story about catching officials involved in ethical misconduct relating to land use. It's an old story, but new to me, and probably new to you, as well. The occasion of the article is the publication of a 3,270-page report on a number of corrupt acts that occurred back in the 1990s in and around Dublin.

Newspapers aren't called the fourth estate for nothing. But in cities these days, they are more like the third estate, more important, that is, than the clergy. In fact, their investigations and editorials can bring down mayors, council presidents, even parties.

Local dailies may be losing money hand over fist, and weeklies, online papers, and blogs have taken away some of their power, but the dailies still have more power with respect to politicians and policies than anyone else.

We like to think of newspapers as run by the Benjamin Franklins and Bradlees of the world:  neutral, wise, and looking for a scoop. But newspaper owners can be seriously political, and often not in the European way of wearing their politics on their sleeves. This didn't use to be such a big problem, because cities had multiple dailies. Few do now.

The ownership of a city daily by individuals with powerful interests in the community to protect can lead one to thoughts of extending government ethics into the fourth estate. This is the case in Philadelphia, according to an article this week in the New York Times entitled "Interference Seen in Philadelphia Papers."