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Worth taking a look at is the work of California Watch in disclosing the use of county party committees to launder campaign contributions far over the legal limits.

The nonpartisan good government organization presents the data in three different forms:

Who expects a wonderful local government ethics surprise to come from New Jersey? Check out the Department of State's Pay-to-Play Ordinances page, which provides links, county by county, of municipal ordinances placing a limited contribution ban on those entering into municipal contracts.

The ordinances are based on a model...

Update: January 4, 2010 (see below)

On December 15, Chicago published a Compliance and Integrity Survey that its Office of Compliance commissioned from the...

In three cities this week, top officials showed the ability to get away with unethical behavior, but not the ability to distinguish law from ethics.

It's only a month ago that a federal court in California rejected a PAC's attempt to prevent the Los Angeles ethics commission from enforcing contribution limits in the city's ethics laws. And yet, according to an article in the San...

Update: December 30, 2009

Two weeks ago, I welcomed the new Palm Beach County ethics codes. What I didn't realize is how much of the county's government isn't covered by the codes, including other elected officials (and their offices) such as the sheriff, the School Board, the tax collector, the county clerk, the property appraiser, and the supervisor of...