Safra Working Papers

It's rare to find a newspaper article that truly appreciates the work a city ethics officer does. So I'm including the entire article below. It's from the Jacksonville Times-Union, and Jacksonville's ethics officer happens to be City Ethics President Carla Miller. Had it been anyone else, I would have run the article right away.

Local government ethics can quickly become an ugly circus when officials don't really understand it.

In May, I wrote a critical assessment of the Luzerne County (PA) Ethics Pledge.

It may be midsummer, but it's still a busy season for local government ethics. Here's how a few local governments are dealing with ethics reform.

The Missouri Ethics Commission has put up a nice slideshow-with-audio presentation on the many changes made to its ethics and campaign finance laws in Senate Bill 844 (it used Adobe Presenter software, but there are likely other alternatives). It's a good way to do reform-specific training.

It's official. According to an article in yesterday's Salt Lake City Tribune, a comprehensive ethics reform petition has been okayed for distribution, with the goal of placing it on the November 2010 ballot. That requires 95,000 signatures on a 21-page petition that is far from easy reading.

In your county, a major corruption investigation is being conducted by the FBI. Already, nearly twenty county employees, city building inspectors, and businessmen have pleaded guilty (see an earlier blog post on the investigation). Others are holding out. What do you do?

It is common for councils to engage in backsliding shortly after creating or improving a government ethics program. When there has been a scandal, councils often go further than they would like to go in establishing ethics rules and procedures. When attention to ethics matters has lessened, it often seems to be a good time to make the program more what council members would like, and this almost always means two things:  (1) making it easier for them to accept gifts and (2) making it harder for citizens to file ethics complaints or for complaints to lead to findings of an ethics violation.

Small towns don't need lobbying registration, because no lobbying of any consequence occurs there.

Small towns don't need lobbying registration, because no lobbying of any consequence occurs there.

Say it often enough — as local government and lobbying associations do — and people believe it's true. But it's not. And here's a good example why.

A week ago, Transparency International published its fifteenth annual Corruption Perceptions Index, which scores countries on the basis of a variety of independent reports on and surveys about corruption, including those from the World Bank and other development banks, and those surveying journalists, business executives, and international organization staff.

One of the best descriptions of an unethical environment in a government agency can be found in the two-page statement that followed the guilty plea of David Loglisci, the former chief investment officer for the New York state pension fund.

In October, I wrote a blog post about a report commissioned by the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA), based on an investigation of an ethics issue involving a Washington, D.C. council member and transit authority board member. The focus of my post was on the conflicted situation of a city council member on a regional board.

An Ethics Matters newsletter from the Atlanta ethics officer is always a valuable occasion for those interested in local government ethics. The fall newsletter is no exception (to subscribe, e-mail [email protected]). This is the first of two blog posts about matters raised in the fall newsletter.

An article in yesterday's Philadelphia Inquirer says that the state's inspector general has found that, despite past problems, the South Jersey Transportation Authority has gotten its act together, ethically speaking.

Update: February 19, 2010 (see below)

This blog post is about Chicago, and things are more complicated in Chicago than in other American municipalities. So please read slowly and carefully.

The law on limiting campaign expenditures has been changing over the past couple of years. But the law on limiting campaign contributions has not. The standard in many instances is more liberal than with campaign expenditures, in others it is the same. And the application of the standard is highly contextual. A law in one jurisdiction, or at a particular time, might be constitutional, while in another jurisdiction, or at a different time, it is not.

It's only been six weeks since I wrote about a campaign finance suit in San Diego, filed by the Republican Party of San Diego County, a former City Council candidate, a pro-business group, a union PAC, and a pollster. Yesterday the federal district court handed down an important split decision on the plaintiffs' motion for preliminary injunction.

It is rare for the news media to look at government ethics any more deeply than a particular scandal, usually one involving law-breaking, money, sex, or a public argument between parties or within a party. The vice-presidential nomination of Sarah Palin has led to the most in-depth look at government ethics for a long time.

Settlements of ethics proceedings are usually a good thing for everyone involved. They save officials the cost of a proceeding and prevent officials from digging themselves deeper and deeper into defenses, denials, and cover-ups, which are usually more harmful to the public trust than any ethics violation. They save taxpayers the cost of a proceeding and of possible appeals. They save the community the pain of going through an extended fight over an ethics violation, which can hurt its reputation, escalate, and have long-term ramifications.