An article in yesterday's Philadelphia Inquirer says that the state's inspector general has found that, despite past problems, the South Jersey Transportation Authority has gotten its act together, ethically speaking. But go to the authority's News Clip page, and all it says is "Nothing to Report." After all, a 103-page inspector general's report detailing the authority's ethical misconduct isn't worth reporting, is it? It's a professionally designed website, but there appears to be nothing about ethics or compliance, and no search line to find it.

Governors Aren't Always Governors
The involvement of New York governor David Paterson in his aide's domestic abuse matter gets right to the heart of government ethics.

According to an article in today's New York Times, Paterson told a state employee and mutual friend of his and the domestic abuse victim's, “Tell her the governor wants her to make this go away."

This month, in Portland, CT, home of the stone used to build New York City's brownstones, the new ethics commission found that it was a violation of the town's ethics code for the board of selectmen (the town's management board) to hire attorneys who had given campaign contributions to the board of selectmen majority's party town committee, according to the EC's minutes. The contributions of the particular attorneys were $20-250.

Cronyism is a tough problem to deal with. First, it's hard to define and, therefore, to enforce. Second, it's not clear that government ethics is the right place to deal with cronyism. Third, it's questionable whether most instances of cronyism create an appearance of impropriety so much as create an opportunity for personal and political attack.

There's a lot of ethics news from San Diego today. First, the judge in the San Diego campaign finance case has clarified his ruling.

Second, the case involving the former president of the Center City Development Corp. is going to a hearing before the San Diego ethics commission next week. The allegations of the EC's general counsel list 34 counts of influencing a municipal decision when it was reasonably foreseeable that the decision would have a material financial impact on the former CCDC president's economic interests. The 34 counts are instances of her participation in matters where she is alleged to have had a conflict.

The ethics war in San Diego is heating up. It has escalated from elected officials pointing out problems they have with the city's ethics commission to the future existence of the EC. The latest battle presents an excellent window into the mindset of those who oppose government ethics, especially, in this case, the enforcement of campaign finance rules.

Cheryl Forchilli, chair of the Florida Commission on Ethics (which deals with local government ethics), wrote a must-read op-ed piece that appeared on the Florida Thinks blog yesterday.

Forchilli's piece begins with a nice simile:

If a sports car barreling down the interstate at 120 miles an hour passes a Florida Highway Patrol officer, we expect that officer to flip on the lights, stop the speeder, and make our roads safer.