The situation of Rose Pak, a power broker for San Francisco's Chinese-American community who was featured a week ago in a New York Times article, raises some interesting questions. A paid consultant to the Chinese Chamber of Commerce, she has never held public office. Nor has she ever registered as a lobbyist or been an official member of a campaign, even that of the Chinese-American man who was just elected mayor, Edwin Lee. According to the article, she has mobilized Chinese votes, volunteers, and contributions for a succession of mayors and city supervisors in return for city financing of social programs and building projects in Chinatown. She also helps Chinese-Americans get appointments in the city government, most notably Lee's appointment as interim mayor (he had been the city administrator).

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.

How you present an ethics provision can make all the difference. Take a pay-to-play ordinance proposed in Fort Wayne, which would limit the amount of contributions and gifts that can be given to city officials by an individual or entity if it wants to have a no-bid contract with the city.

It's fascinating how different issues are important to local government officials in difference places at different times. I couldn't say that officials will always dig in their heels and fight this ethics provision, or that another ethics provision never raises an eyebrow.

Take Broward County, FL, for example. After numerous arrests and convictions of local officials, the county commission passed a new ethics ordinace, and the county's citizens voted to have this ordinance apply to the county's municipalities (see my November 2010 blog post).

Many of the municipalities had problems with the ordinance, so the county commission asked the Broward League of Cities for its recommended changes in adapting the county code to municipalities. The county ordinance and the League's revised version are attached below, so that you can open them side by side, if you'd like. You might also want to look at the Sun-Sentinel's chart comparing the two.

An ethics controversy involving the Atlanta Public Schools (APS) has led to the resignation of four of the seven members of the APS ethics commission, a failure to replace them, and a threat to the schools' accreditation status.

As discussed in an earlier blog post, eighteen months ago the Dallas council, under the prodding of the mayor at the time, passed some ethics reforms. According to a Dallas News editorial last month, only six months later the council backed off reporting requirements for gifts they receive, creating a number of exceptions.

One of the new provisions prohibited campaign contributions to a council member while a zoning case was being decided by the council and for 60 days afterwards. But then in April, as part of the consent agenda, without discussion, developers' employees and representatives were excluded from this prohibition (only property owners, their officers and directors are now covered), and the 60-day prohibition was shortened to 30 days, apparently so that contributions could come pouring in faster, appearances be damned.