In my previous blog post, the issue arose of voiding a planning and zoning commission's approval of a permit because one of the commission members had a conflict of interest. Connecticut law automatically invalidates the commission action, without any individual or body having to act. But this is unusual. In fact, most jurisdictions do not expressly provide for the avoidance of permits, contracts, or other transactions.

It's been almost two years since the New York Times broke the story on the abuses of New York City council earmarks slush fund, which totaled about $50 million a year. This week, the council member featured in the Times article was expelled from the state senate for a violent act committed against his female companion, according to an article in yesterday's Times. And according to a Times article today, another council member was indicted by a federal grand jury for much the same sort of conduct. Not the violence, but the misuse of council earmarks to help himself and his family, which included charges of money laundering, extortion, and fraud.

But unlike the violent council member, this one was enabled by hundreds of elected and appointed city officials.

Political activity by local government employees can be a sign of misuse of office. And when election problems arise, they generally involve local government employees, as has happened in Essex County (NJ; home of Newark), according to an article in Friday's Star-Ledger.

The principal problem with political activity involves patronage, the system whereby officials make it a requirement of being hired for a job that the employee work for the election of certain candidates. The classic case is Chicago, where even a federal order to institute serious obstacles to the patronage system were, for years, undermined by fraudulent conduct.

This week saw the opening of the trial of former New York state senate majority leader Joseph Bruno for honest services fraud. According to the assistant U.S. attorney presenting the case, as quoted in the Albany Times-Union, although a criminal trial, "this case is about conflicts of interest. It's about failure to disclose conflicts of interest, and it's about concealment of information that might have exposed conflicts of interest."

It's been over three years since I wrote about the conflict situation of San Diego's pension board. Its members were selected by the city government labor unions and by the city, and they worked for the city. When an increase in their retirement benefits was explicitly tied to their approval of a reduction in contributions to the pension plan, the pension board members acted in their personal interest and against the interest of the city's taxpayers in the responsible handling of the pension system. That is, the pension board members voted for a deal that directly benefited them. And state prosecutors brought an action against them for criminal conflict of interest.

The wheels of justice move slowly, and the matter (which has not yet been tried) has made its way to the state supreme court, which will hear the case Wednesday, November 4. The briefs can be found here (Lexin v. S.C.), at least until Wednesday.

Undisclosed conflicts can cause a lot of problems, but rarely are they a matter of life and death. In Collin County, TX, north of Dallas, an undisclosed conflict could have been responsible for a man's death sentence (and, perhaps, many more sentences).