Last week, according to an article in the Chicago Tribune, Chicago Mayor Richard Daley responded to the conviction of yet another alderman by proposing (i) that the Inspector General's office oversee the city's hiring program for fairness, instead of the Office of Compliance the mayor set up in 2007; (ii) that the IG's office take jurisdiction over the council (whose members are called "aldermen") and their staff, something the council rejected twenty years ago, and ever since; (iii) that city workers and contractors who fail to report corrupt activity be punished; (iv) that the IG office's investigative reports be posted online, minus the names of those involved; and (v) that the IG's office get a guaranteed minimum budget. Click here to see a video of the mayor's proposal.

I've been remiss at covering the complex battles that have gone on in and around the San Francisco ethics commission. I did, however, start a piece in August 2009, which I have appended to this one, with an update.

According to an article in the Fog City Journal, a week from this Saturday, there will be a memorial service, and march to or upon the San Francisco ethics commission, in memory of Joe Lynn, a former EC campaign finance officer and EC member who died in December.

It's been almost two years since the New York Times broke the story on the abuses of New York City council earmarks slush fund, which totaled about $50 million a year. This week, the council member featured in the Times article was expelled from the state senate for a violent act committed against his female companion, according to an article in yesterday's Times. And according to a Times article today, another council member was indicted by a federal grand jury for much the same sort of conduct. Not the violence, but the misuse of council earmarks to help himself and his family, which included charges of money laundering, extortion, and fraud.

But unlike the violent council member, this one was enabled by hundreds of elected and appointed city officials.

Update: February 19, 2010 (see below)

This blog post is about Chicago, and things are more complicated in Chicago than in other American municipalities. So please read slowly and carefully.

According to an article in yesterday's Chicago Tribune, the first deputy in the mayor's Office of Compliance resigned a few weeks after he and the office's executive director were found by the city's inspector general to have mishandled a 2008 sexual harassment complaint (e.g., they tried to find the accused another city job). The IG recommended that the mayor suspend the two men for thirty days without pay.

Update: February 3, 2010 (see below)

A NC Local Government Blog post yesterday made me aware that there have recently been some very public conflict of interest issues involving North Carolina's alcoholic beverage control (ABC) system, the state liquor sales program, which allows each city and county to have a local alcoholic beverage control board and employees (163 boards in all).

Can the government ethics enforcement community learn anything from a successful experiment in the crime enforcement field? With tongue only partly in cheek, I will try to show ways in which the government ethics enforcement community could learn a thing or two.

This week's New York Times Magazine ran an excellent piece by Jeffrey Rosen on a successful approach to crime enforcement. Here's the essence of the article's message: