Safra Working Papers
Formerly Known as Lobbyists . . .
Robert Wechsler
According to a
press release from the American League of Lobbyists, the
association that lobbies for lobbyists, the membership has voted to
change its name and "brand" to the Association of Government
Relations Professionals.
It's good that lobbyists do not run election campaigns, because their branding is pretty blind. The acronym for their new name is going to be, whatever they may say, AGRIP, as in "a grip on the necks of elected officials." Couldn't they have seen this coming?
It's good that lobbyists do not run election campaigns, because their branding is pretty blind. The acronym for their new name is going to be, whatever they may say, AGRIP, as in "a grip on the necks of elected officials." Couldn't they have seen this coming?
Fort Wayne Deserves a Far Better Ethics Program
Robert Wechsler
If you're a city of a quarter million people with an ethics board that
“has not met in many years and ... is effectively non-existent,”
according to a council member who has proposed a new ethics ordinance,
what do you do?
Not, I think, what the proposed ordinance (p. 16ff) does, which is create a new ethics board solely for council members, and consisting of two council members, the city attorney, and two citizens of their choice.
Not, I think, what the proposed ordinance (p. 16ff) does, which is create a new ethics board solely for council members, and consisting of two council members, the city attorney, and two citizens of their choice.
FORUMs in Community building
Robert Wechsler
The use of a self-registration based community website is a relatively new thing for the webmasters of the world.
Four Varying Approaches to Ethics Reform
Robert Wechsler
Four current attempts at ethics reform show the incredible variety of
approaches and ideas of what government ethics is.
Prohibiting County Employees from Contracting with the County
Prohibiting County Employees from Contracting with the County
Fraud and Ethics Enforcement
Robert Wechsler
Criminal enforcement of ethics violations usually involves fraud, and less so honest services fraud (which was essentially misuse of office) now that it has been essentially limited to bribery. And yet ethics enforcement rarely involves fraud, because ethics codes do not have fraud provisions. This is pretty strange, when you think about it: the same misconduct being treated as apples and oranges.
Free Speech and Open Meeting Laws
Robert Wechsler
Are Americans turning First Amendment free speech into a fetish?
Free Speech and the Difference Between Elected Officials and Ordinary Citizens
Robert Wechsler
Yet another court decision discussed at the COGEL conference placed
First Amendment free speech rights far above the obligations of a
government official, employing a strict scrutiny approach where a simple due process (for statutory vagueness) approach would have been sufficient.
Funding Ethics Commissions
Robert Wechsler
As I state in my comments to section 207 of the model code, cutting the funding of ethics commissions is a popular way for politicians to prevent investigations from happening.
Fundraising for a Political Convention: Pay to Play, Transparency, and a Blind Spot
Robert Wechsler
Even the most enthusiastic good government politicians often have a
serious blind spot: themselves. They believe that everyone
else is into pay to play and selling out to big contributors. But
not them. They're only doing what's best for their city. They
have only the community's best interests in mind. And sometimes the
community needs those big contributors, and who but he is best
situated to get them to open their wallets? However, the big
contributors don't have the same blind spot, so they don't want the
public to know how much they're shelling out.
Furloughed Employees Are Still Subject to Ethics Laws
Robert Wechsler
According to an
article in the Washington Post this week, the federal Office
of Government Ethics has reminded agencies to tell their furloughed
employees that "they remain employees of the Federal Government
during furlough periods . . .
Future of Ethics Training: Trends
cmiller
Francesca Gino, Bidhan (Bobby) Parmar and Julia Lee
To build on the gains made in recent years, ethics training will have to accomplish several goals. First, ethics training needs to focus on unleashing participants’ intrinsic motivation to be ethical, rather than rely on sol
Garbage Ethics Reform in Chicago Sets an Example
Robert Wechsler
Garbage is the principal regular point of contact between
individuals and their local government. If people are happy with
their garbage pickup, they are likely to be happy with their local
government. For this reason, smart high-level local government
officials make sure that garbage pickup is done well.
General Advisory Opinions Are Very Useful
Robert Wechsler
A couple of months ago, the Ohio Ethics Commission did something very
wise and valuable: it drafted an advisory
opinion on nepotism rules, gathering information from years of
partial, specific advisory opinions, and providing examples. It even
gives excellent definitions of each of the relevant terms, including
such generally applicable terms as "public contract" and
"anything of value."
Georgia Attempts to Require Local Ethics Enforcement
Robert Wechsler
Last month, the Georgia Senate unanimously passed a
bill requiring every local governing body (including school boards) to create an ethics panel to
hear complaints regarding at least members of the local governing body and, in counties, elected constitutional
officers.
Georgia's Aspirational Guidelines
Robert Wechsler
The City Ethics Model Ethics Code includes as an aspirational code the American Society for Professional Administration's (ASPA) Code of Ethics. This is highly unusual, but not unprecedented. One precedent is the Georgia Municipal Association's City of Ethics program, developed in 1999.
The Georgia program requires municipalities to do two things in order to qualify.
Getting the Green Bay Ethics Program into the Super Bowl
Robert Wechsler
The Green Bay Packers football team is going to try to win its game
today in order to get to the playoffs and seek its first Super Bowl
victory since 1996. Before 1996, the Packers hadn't won a Super Bowl
since
Vince Lombardi coached them there in 1967.
Getting the Word Out to Lawyers
Robert Wechsler
The American Bar Association Journal does a list of the best law-related
blogs each year, and I thought I'd ask my readers to help get this list to work for a good cause: getting more lawyers to learn about local government ethics. City Ethics will get nothing out of being named to the list. To
see last year's list (it's broken up into categories; City Ethics
would fall under "niche"), click here.
Gift Bans and Falling Sales
Robert Wechsler
According to an article in the November 29 issue of The
Economist, when China banned gifts to government officials,
sales of the principal producer of baijiu, a sort of Chinese vodka,
fell 78% in just a year.
The only sales that would likely go down if gifts were banned across the board in the United States would be restaurant and golf club sales. That is because petty bribery is less a problem here than the ongoing reciprocal relationships between lobbyists and the government officials their clients are seeking to influence.
The only sales that would likely go down if gifts were banned across the board in the United States would be restaurant and golf club sales. That is because petty bribery is less a problem here than the ongoing reciprocal relationships between lobbyists and the government officials their clients are seeking to influence.
Gifts
Robert Wechsler
This is the place to discuss limitations on gifts to officials and employees, and their family members. Probably no other aspect of ethics codes has so many different solutions. Please share your thoughts about and experiences with various attempts at solving this basic problem, and suggest language that you feel works well.