The lead article in yesterday's New York Times was on charities set up by members of congress. I've written a few times about the use of charities to get around campaign finance and gift provisions (1 2 3), but this is an area of special creativity, where new ideas, and new reasons for regulation, arise frequently. For example, the foundation on which the article focuses employs the congressman's son, a Rialto, CA council member, as its CEO and President.

Update: May 12, 2010 (see below)

According to an article in Tuesday's Sun-Sentinel, Broward County (FL) Commissioner Ilene Lieberman feels that the ethics code written by a special commission on ethics (most of whose members were selected by the commissioners individually) was "drafted without proper research so as to avoid absurd and unintended consequences.'' As the incoming president of the Florida Association of Counties, this accusation carries some weight. Other commissioners seem to have the same concern, although their examples show no absurdities in the draft code. Here's an example of an example:

Special Counsel Robert S. Bennett's report on the District of Columbia council's earmark grants and personal services contracts was made public yesterday by the Washington City Paper. Before discussing Bennett's recommendations, I should disclose that City Ethics was asked by the D.C. council to advise them on related ethics issues, and we met shortly with two of Mr. Bennett's associates, but were not involved in any way in the investigation or preparation of the Bennett report.

It's an excellent report, and its recommendations, especially regarding council earmark grants, are must reading in any city that allows or is contemplating this sort of grant. The earmark recommendations start on p. 97 of the report (p. 100 of the PDF file).

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.

End runs around ethics and campaign finance laws are one of my favorite topics to write about. A sizeable percentage of the creative energies of government officials and their attorneys seems to go into coming up with ways of getting around these laws. And then arguing that such laws are of little value since you can't plug loopholes as fast as they can invent them.

The Center for Governmental Studies in California has just published a report on this very topic (although focused on the campaign finance side), aptly titled Loopholes, Tricks and End Runs: Evasions of Campaign Finance Laws, and a Model Law to Block Them (by Molly Milligan).

Ethics reform aimed at political opponents is a good way to undermine the whole idea of ethics reform. This is what is happening in San Jose.

San Jose starts off with an odd ethics program. Title 12: Ethics Provisions does not even have a conflict of interest provision, nor does the city have an ethics commission. It is primarily a campaign finance and lobbying law, with a gift provision and a revolving door provision. It is enforced by an Election Commission. Ethics matters are primarily left to the state.

Every two years, the mayor reviews the ethics laws and suggests reforms. The mayor made his suggestions this week, and the council members associated with labor hit the ceiling. Here are the suggestions, according to the mayor's office, as included in an article in yesterday's San Jose Mercury-News: