Disclosure

There are three basic approaches to enforcing ethics laws:  through ethics commissions, through the criminal process, and through the ballot box. I strongly oppose using the criminal process for ethics violations (see an earlier blog post), and feel that the ballot box is far too crude a way to enforce ethics laws, especially considering that voters do not have the facts or know the laws.

A situation in Santa Clara...

Prof. Patricia Salkin, director of the Government Law Center at Albany Law School and author of the Law of the Land blog, has published another of her regular roundup of what's been happening recently in the ethics of land use. Her focus is on cases that have...

An Ethics Matters newsletter from the Atlanta ethics officer is always a valuable occasion for those interested in local government ethics. The fall newsletter is no exception (to subscribe, e-mail [email protected]). This is the first of two blog posts about matters raised in the fall newsletter.
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Government pensions are one of the most serious issues facing local and state governments. Most pension plans are underfunded, and the generous pensions, the relatively short vesting periods, and the low retirement ages that allow for at least one more career, not only cost taxpayers a great deal of money, but seem unfair to those without pensions or with far worse pension situations.

This is not an area where government officials should want to add apparent conflicts to the mix,...

It's always nice to see clever, simple, effective forms of disclosure that convey the most important information in the most readable, quickly understandable way. Such a form of disclosure is suggested in a paper published a month ago by Justin Levitt, a professor at Loyola Law School, and summarized in an...

The term "situational ethics" derives from a particular theory of a priest named Joseph Fletcher, but it is more generally understood to mean dealing with ethics in terms of a particular situation and particular goals (ends-oriented ethics). In other words, it is ethics that allows for different rules in different circumstances, but also for self-serving, sometimes hypocritical, ethical statements and actions...