Disclosure

Transparency in government should not be limited only to officials. Disclosure rules should also apply to everyone seeking special benefits from government, such as contracts, permits, or grants. For one thing, without transparency on both sides of every transaction, it is impossible for the public…

Elisabeth Rosenthal wrote an excellent op-ed piece for the New York Times last Sunday. It was about disclosure, more specifically about the way disclosure sometimes neither leads to more transparency, nor prevents what it is intended to prevent. In the government ethics situation, that would mean p…

Here's a good followup to yesterday's blog post about a conflict of interest in Tucson. In that post, I argued that annual financial disclosure makes it clear that an official's basic interests are public information, and said, "The goal of annual disclosure is to let the public know about an offic…

In my recent blog post on Maricopa County, I referred to the problem of harassment and intimidation by government officials against other government officials and employees. I have also referred in the past to the even more serious problem of harassment, intimidation, and ad hominem attacks by gove…

According to an article in the Jacksonville Times-Union this week, former Jacksonville council member and current lobbyist Ginny Myrick said, in response to lobbying reforms suggested by Jacksonville ethics officer, and City Ethics' president, Carla Miller, that (not exact words) "it is important f…