Conflicts

Usually, in government ethics situations, local officials can get away with doing nothing, especially when the conflict isn't theirs. Few ethics codes have provisions prohibiting complicity in and requiring the reporting of others' ethics violations (see the City Ethics Model Code's provision for a provision that covers both).

That's why I found it refreshing to come across an...

Last month, I wrote about how the Green Bay ethics board hadn't met much more than the Packers had won Super Bowls. Well, now that the Packers have won another, it's time for the ethics board to meet again (the last time it met was in 1999).

One thing Green Bay and Pittsburgh officials have in common is their payment for face-value Super Bowl tickets. You may wonder what is...

According to an article in The Record this week, a Clifton, New Jersey council member is being accused of dealing irresponsibly with a conflict by participating in a discussion about, although not voting on, the reappointment of two members of the city's zoning board. The conflict is an unusual one. The council member lives near a house that a group of...

The U.S. is not the only country with a revolving-door problem. In Japan, the problem is deeply institutionalized. It is as much a part of the retirement system as pensions.

But the Japanese name for the revolving door shows that not only does the system work in a different manner than ours, but that the Japanese have a different opinion of the relative value of government and business. The name is amakudari, which means "descent from heaven," the way Shinto gods used to...

According to an op-ed piece by a county commissioner from Collier County, Florida (in the Naples Daily News), two interesting twists on the gift to an official's favorite charity gambit occurred recently. Gifts to officials' favorite charities are a common way to get around pay-to-play laws. Here is what...

The boom years of the Oughts were very good to Gwinnett County, a suburban Atlanta county of 800,000 that grew by a third in the last decade. But boom times are rarely good for local government ethics, and Gwinnett County appears to be no exception. A grand jury report unsealed in October (a searchable copy is attached; see below) found a series of land acquisitions by the county at above market price (even after the...