Safra Working Papers

In the materials I have found online, Speech or Debate Clause issues are discussed in terms of state legislators (and usually state constitutions), even though the federal Speech or Debate Clause applies equally to local government legislators. But the discussions are all relevant to local government situations.

I will continue to add to this list, and I'd appreciate receiving information about other discussions of these issues.

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Again and again, local government officials say that there is no need for an improved ethics program in their town because no one is filing complaints. If there were ethical problems, they argue, there would be lots of complaints. But complaints are not an indication of the need for a better government ethics program. The reason is that no one files a complaint when they do not expect a fair hearing of the complaint (most basic programs do not have a body that is considered independent and neutral).

Last week, a resident from one of the towns next to mine (Wallingford, CT) called me for advice regarding his request for an advisory opinion. The request involved the appropriateness of council members affiliated with a church participating in a matter that involved funding for renovation of a wall along the church's parking lot. This is a difficult conflict situation, but some town officials made it much more complicated than it had to be.

Like penalties, the topic of advisory opinions appears in both the ethics provision and administration sections of the Model Code. Advisory opinions are the most important of an Ethics Commission's responsibilities, and often the most underutilized. Regular use of this option, and the creation of a body of opinions, can go far to providing concrete guidance to municipal officials and employees.

An excellent op-ed column by Stanley Fish in the July 14 New York Times focuses on a very difficult ethical problem in municipal government: affirmative action. The recently decided Supreme Court decision, Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1 et al (No.

It's refreshing when an elected official attacks government ethics head-on. This is what Tennessee state representative Willie "Butch" Borchert did in an impromptu speech yesterday, according to an Associated Press report.

I recently read a fascinating classic study by Albert O. Hirschman (Institute of Advanced Study) called Shifting Involvements: Private Interest and Public Action (1982). This book focuses on the various tensions between private consumption and public action. It only touches on government ethics issues, but what Hirschman says is worth sharing. For example:

In memory of Albert O.Hirschman, an important economist and political scientist who died last month, I want to apply some of the ideas from his most famous book, Exit, Voice, and Loyalty (1970), to local government ethics (back in 2009, I pulled out a few thought-provoking passages from his 1983 book,

Those who have been closely following the dismissal of U.S. Attorneys by the Bush Administration may know that one of them involves a U.S. Attorney who did not move fast enough with an investigation into possible kickbacks relating to the building of a county courthouse in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Yesterday, according to an article in the Albuquerque Tribune, a former Albuquerque mayor, and two others, pleaded guilty in connection with this investigation, and the new U.S.

According to an article in the Providence Journal, a Rhode Island state senator has been indicted on federal charges that he falsified documents to get mortgages and an auto loan worth more than $1.5 million.

There are people who get great satisfaction going after the ethics of government ethics professionals. Rarely are their accusations relevant to government ethics; it's just about showing that we're not good people, either, as if government ethics was just about good and bad. Maybe we should wear t-shirts that say, on the front, "We're Not Perfect," and on the back, "So?"

Mike DeBonis's article in the Washington Post last week describes an operatic ethics matter, with several twists and complications, with dramatic cries of innocence mixed with scathing accusations of guilt.

Should advisory board and task force members be excepted from conflict of interest rules? Jurisdictions disagree about this. Some believe that, when a board has no authority to act or implement, the usual rules should not apply. The principal argument is that there are times when a government needs to get people with opposing interests together — such as business and union interests — in order to hash out community problems. Another argument is the need for expertise.

According to an Associated Press article this weekend, Jim Moran, a congressman from Virginia, was banned from entering Russia supposedly for a series of financial misdeeds.

On August 29, the D.C. Board of Ethics and Government Accountability issued an advisory opinion on the important and far too overlooked topic of constituent services (attached; see below). The issuing of advisory opinions that cover more than a very specific set of facts, what I call "general advisory opinions," is itself very valuable (see the section of my book Local Government Ethics Programs on general advisory opinions).

Here's a clever way to abuse the advisory opinion process. A few months after conduct begins, seek advice from the ethics commission. After the EC tells you it's okay, increase the amount of conduct so much that the advice is no longer relevant, and then point to the advice in defense of the conduct. Finally, refuse to provide information about the extent of the conduct, so that no one can provide hard evidence that there is truly a change in the extent of the conduct.

This is a follow-up to yesterday's blog post on ethics fines. This week, I've been reading Karen Pryor's bible on positive training, Don't Shoot the Dog: The New Art of Teaching and Training (Bantam, 1999).

I'm reading the book to get ideas for training the puppy I will soon be getting. Positive training is a more humane and, supposedly, more effective approach than traditional obedience training.

This is the first of a series of looks at the ethics programs of smaller cities, towns, and counties. These local governments have the resources to create an independent, comprehensive ethics program, but they rarely do. It is valuable to look at both the good ideas and the bad ideas in the programs they have chosen to create.

People frequently belittle government ethics reforms as meaningless window dressing intended to make politicians look like they're being ethical, something I have said myself in certain contexts. Yet it is worth reading an extreme view of this, which oddly comes from a journalist writing a blog that takes "an evangelical Christian viewpoint."

Update: May 12, 2010 (see below)