Conflicts

One thing I've failed to do in this blog is sufficiently emphasize that making ethical decisions in government is not primarily about being a good, ethical person, as most people seem to think. Essentially, it is the same as making other decisions. As I  recently wrote, "with effective training, in an ethical environment, government ethics should be just another professional routine."

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...

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...

Here are two interesting local government ethics case studies from matters in the news this week.

A Job Can Effectively Be a Gift
According to an article in the Spokesman-Review, a Spokane council member requested an advisory opinion from the city's ethics committee after his successful push to change city regulations to allow bus bench...

Can grades be evidence of a conflict of interest? This is what the Cook County prosecutor's office is effectively arguing, according to an article in the Chicago Tribune.

Northwestern University journalism students spent three years researching a criminal case, in which they believe that a man was wrongfully convicted. They presented a great deal of evidence to the prosecutor's...

Updates: November 28, 2009 (see below, with December 23 correction)

When a local government official co-owns a company, is it enough to create a separate company owned solely by another co-owner to do business with the official's city?