Legal Disciplinary Proceeding as Ethics Enforcement Forum
Occasionally, government ethics enforcement spills out from ethics and criminal proceedings into other types of proceeding. Since Maricopa County's officials have managed to turn ethics and criminal enforcement into a form of internecine warfare, the state's lawyer disciplinary program has gotten into the action.

Looking at government ethics through the appearance standard, as Dennis Thompson did in his book Ethics in Congress: From Individual to Institutional Corruption, reveals the great importance of independence to ethics advice and enforcement. No one is in a worse position to see appearances of impropriety than someone who considers his motives to be good, and his goals to be of utmost importance. This is not the mark of a corrupt individual, but rather a common human characteristic. A legislator not only has an obligation to respect people's reasonable reactions to her conduct, but equally has an obligation to recognize how hard it is for her and her colleagues to know how people will react to what they feel is good or, at least, legal conduct.

A post yesterday in Coates' Canons: NC Local Government Law Blog raises an interesting issue about the situation of a local government candidate who has an interest in a contract with the local government which, by NC law, is prohibited not for candidates, but for a winning candidate the day he or she takes office. This provides a good occasion to look at the intersection of candidates and local government ethics codes, outside of the more common campaign finance issues.

How many hats can a local government attorney wear when it comes to government ethics? This question arises out of a state bar grievance filed against Houston's city attorney by a member of the city council.

According to an article in the Houston Chronicle last week, the council member alleged that the city attorney violated legal ethics rules by providing legal advice to her before an inspector general investigation and then to the mayor during and after the investigation. The council member also alleged that the city attorney participated in a review process that he largely designed, and that he gave legal advice on a case in which he was a witness.

It staggers the imagination how combative local government officials can sometimes be with respect to ethics commissions. A year ago, I wrote about a former Sioux Falls (SD) council member, Kermit Staggers, who attacked complaints filed by the city's ethics board as "frivolous" and attacked its procedures when it gave him two private, that is confidential, reprimands.

But this wasn't nearly enough. He had to show them that they couldn't get away with reprimanding him. According to an article in the Argus Leader this April, he filed a complaint with the state's open meetings commission, ending in a reprimand of the ethics board for reaching a decision during an executive session (the decision was to dismiss another complaint against him).

The Supreme Court reached a decision today in the Carrigan case, and it is nearly unanimous. However, it deals with only one part of the arguments made by Carrigan (see my blog post on the oral argument): whether a local legislative vote is protected speech under the First Amendment. The answer is a nearly unanimous No.