Ethics Commissions/Administration

Here is one of the most useful sections of my new book Local Government Ethics Programs. Summer is upon us, and most ethics commissions that do not have a case before them do not meet. In fact, many ethics commissions are nearly inactive all year long. But this doesn't have to happen. There's a lot…

My most recent blog post involved ethics commission confidentiality. This one involves the other side of the coin:  ethics commission transparency. I often send blog posts to officials I write about, hoping that they will enter into dialogue about the issue, privately or online, or at least learn s…

I have written about the need for ethics commissions to go beyond the criminal enforcement paradigm, which limits commissions to determining whether an individual respondent has violated an ethics provision or not. It is hard to find instances of a commission looking at the bigger picture, that is,…

Can a local ethics commission be lobbied? It's conceivable, especially with respect to recommendations for ethics reform. It is important for an ethics commission to have an ethics code provision or regulation that prohibits ex parte communications relating to any proceeding. But with respect to et…

For Independence Day, here's a blog post that pulls together all past blog posts on ethics commission independence. EC independence is essential to an effective and respected ethics program, and yet a small minority of ECs are truly independent. Those individuals seeking to make their city or count…

Last week, Wisconsin taught us the lesson that even when you go to great lengths to ensure a nonpartisan, independent ethics body, there will be politicians who accuse it of being partisan when it makes decisions against their interests. The good thing is that, when the body is truly nonpartisan an…

I've written many blog posts about various cases where the legislative immunity defense has been made, but I haven't pulled together in one post the three alternative, preventative approaches local governments can take to deal with the issue of legislative immunity before anyone raises it as a defe…

Agency consolidation seems to be the buzzword this year. The ostensible reason is to save money and use government resources more efficiently. But is this really the principal reason? A bill has just been introduced in Connecticut (my state) to place the Office of State Ethics (the state ethics com…