When a major newspaper's editorial on a city council's handling of an important ethics issue begins with "Sneaky. Real sneaky." it's something worth sharing with those interested in local government ethics.

Just down the road from Philadelphia, Baltimore too is considering ethics reforms, but it's in response to a scandal involving its past mayor rather than in response to the work of a task force.

There are two bills before the Baltimore council, both of them introduced while the new mayor was council president. One makes changes to the city's ethics board composition and ethics training, the other to the city's ethics code. Neither is much to get excited about.

Do Chinese walls (that is, mechanisms that separate someone from information or involvement in a matter) work in conflict situations in government? And what considerations determine whether they work or not?

One consideration is whether, even with the Chinese wall, there is still an appearance of a conflict. Another consideration is whether the individual will still have access to the information or still be involved in the matter despite the Chinese wall; that is, whether the Chinese wall is really a Chinese screen.

There are two important Chinese walls in the news the last couple of days. One involves congressional representatives in the position of choosing defense-related earmarks and their access to information about which recipients of those earmarks made campaign contributions to them, at what amounts and at what times. The other involves what was apparently a sweetheart deal between Florida and the United States Sugar Company, where the governor's chief of staff's law firm represented U.S. Sugar in the negotiations.

Last December, I listed the major recommendations of Philadelphia's Task Force on Ethics and Campaign Finance Reform in its 58-page report.

According to an article in yesterday's Philadelphia Inquirer, just three months later, fifteen of seventeen city council members have co-sponsored a series of ethics reform bills. That sounds like good, fast work that deserves some serious applause.

But there are some big question marks. One is that none of the bills are available online. Each bill is given a bill-less page (1  2  3  4   5; also see the March 4 council minutes for a full list of the bills and sponsors), and in one case there is even a link to a bill, but the link doesn't work. So I am dependent, for now, on what I read in the newspaper.

Influence. It's a big word in a lot of government ethics laws, and a word that those who write such laws should think at least twice about.

As everyone knows, New York Governor David Paterson has been accused by the NY Commission on Public Integrity (CPI) of having violated the state's gift ban by asking for and receiving five tickets to the first game of last year's World Series, at Yankee Stadium. But the reports are, of course, ignoring the language of the law. Here it is:

New York City's mayor, Michael Bloomberg, has an ongoing problem confusing his job as mayor, his ownership of a big media company, and his philanthropic activities. One of the symptoms of this problem is the unusual revolving door he provides for some of his closest advisers.