Safra Working Papers
A New Government Ethics Report from a New Florida Organization
Robert Wechsler
In recent years, Florida's elected officials have shown a great deal
of leadership in the field of unethical and criminal misconduct. The
state has a weak state ethics commission, which has jurisdiction
over local officials, and until recently only one good local
government ethics program, in Miami/Dade County (Jacksonville and
Palm Beach County joined this list with ethics reform last year).
The major voices in government ethics in Florida have, sadly, been
grand juries.
A New Idea: Lifestyle Audits
Robert Wechsler
Have you ever wondered how a local government department head can
afford to live like a king on a $100,000 salary?
A New Local Ethics Program's First Matter Raises Some Important Issues
Robert Wechsler
An
excellent editorial yesterday by Dan Barton, editor of the
Kingston (NY) Times, raises a few important issues relating
to local government ethics proceedings.
According to Barton, Kingston's new ethics board dismissed a complaint from a city alderman that the mayor had violated the ethics code by hiring as an attorney for the city's local development corporation a lawyer with whom the mayor practiced as "of counsel."
According to Barton, Kingston's new ethics board dismissed a complaint from a city alderman that the mayor had violated the ethics code by hiring as an attorney for the city's local development corporation a lawyer with whom the mayor practiced as "of counsel."
A New Local Government Ethics Term
Robert Wechsler
Kudos to the editorial board of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch for
inventing a new local government ethics term in an
editorial yesterday. The term is "dyscronia."
A New Mayoral Charity in San Diego
Robert Wechsler
According to an article yesterday on the Voice of San Diego website, yet another mayoral pet charity has been created in San Diego, called One San Diego.
A New Proposal for a Pennsylvania Public Integrity Commission with Jurisdiction Over Local Government Officials
Robert Wechsler
Yesterday, four Pennsylvania state representatives, two from each of
the major parties, announced a proposal to create a public integrity
commission that would have greater powers than the current state ethics
commission, and would jurisdiction over officials at all levels of government.
A New Punch Line in Cook County's Patronage Joke
Robert Wechsler
Today's big story comes to us from Cook County, Illinois, and although
it's about whether a government lawyer has a conflict of interest, the
matter falls into the area of government ethics in which Chicago
and Cook County have led the way for decades: patronage.
A New Report and New Book on State and Federal Ethical Misconduct
Robert Wechsler
The Privatization of Economic Development
A New Report on the Ethics Programs of Florida Counties
Robert Wechsler
On November 29, Florida State University’s LeRoy Collins
Institute and the new good government group Integrity Florida
released a report
entitled "Florida Counties Bridge the Ethics Policy Gap",
which analyzes the results of a survey of government
ethics programs and reforms in 45 of Florida’s 67 counties.
A New Sort of Regional EC in Utah
Robert Wechsler
In early 2009, I started out a blog post, "Type
'ethics' into the search line at utah.gov, and all that comes up
is Archery Ethics Course Online." That is no longer true. In fact,
the state legislature not only has an ethics commission, it even
passed a local ethics commission act.
A New State Integrity Index Report
Robert Wechsler
Two weeks ago, the
Better Government Association-Alper Services Integrity Index was published, the first
since 2008. It grades each state's conflicts of interest, freedom of
information, open meetings, and whistleblower-protection laws.
A new Sunshine Law suit in Florida...
Robert Wechsler
From the Miami Herald blog: Newspapers, advocates sue the governor and Cabinet for sunshine violation The Florida Society of Newspaper Editors, the Associated Press, a Tampa lawyer and a coalition of sunshine advocates filed a lawsuit late Tuesday alleging that Gov. Rick Scott and the Cabinet violated the state's open meeting laws when the governor unilaterally decided to "force the resignation" of former Florida Department of Law Enforcement Chief Gerald Bailey and they consented.
A New Twist on Charity Abuse by Politicians
Robert Wechsler
See below for two updates
I've written a lot about politicians' charities, and how they allow lobbyists and others to get around limits on campaign contributions. But an article in today's New York Times presents a new form of abuse of a politician's charities (although it's not as different as it first seems).
I've written a lot about politicians' charities, and how they allow lobbyists and others to get around limits on campaign contributions. But an article in today's New York Times presents a new form of abuse of a politician's charities (although it's not as different as it first seems).
A New Twist to a Baltimore Legislative Immunity Case
Robert Wechsler
The paths of justice have some odd twists to them. Consider these
twists. As I wrote in a
blog post almost exactly a year ago, both parties to a case
involving a Baltimore council member's alleged acceptance of a bribe
argued that a statutory provision entitled "Action for defamation
against local government
official" was not relevant to the case.
A new way to influence elections without transparency
Robert Wechsler
We are seeing the first detailed evidence of the tampering that went on during the 2016 campaign for U.S. President. This is a whole new category of "nasty" that allows people without scruples to feed false information into the mix without any transparency. In this article, the NY Times lays out a host of Facebook and Twitter advertising that was purchased (estimated at $100,000 in paid advertising) but sources were never revealed - as you might expect.
A New, But Very Weak Regional Ethics Program in Connecticut
Robert Wechsler
[Note: I have made changes throughout this blog post, based on a February 25 e-mail message from the COG executive director]
It should feel good when a pet idea of yours becomes a reality. My pet idea is the regional ethics program, whose biggest successes have been of the countywide variety, such as Miami-Dade County and Palm Beach County, FL (there is also a Broward County program, but it is run by an inspector general). There are a few regional ethics commissions in Kentucky, and one in Northwest Indiana, but they don't really have ethics programs.
It should feel good when a pet idea of yours becomes a reality. My pet idea is the regional ethics program, whose biggest successes have been of the countywide variety, such as Miami-Dade County and Palm Beach County, FL (there is also a Broward County program, but it is run by an inspector general). There are a few regional ethics commissions in Kentucky, and one in Northwest Indiana, but they don't really have ethics programs.
A New, Improved Local Government Ethics Treasure Trove
Robert Wechsler
What could provide a better education for local government ethics
practitioners than reading through a greatly expanded 261-page list of all the cases the New York City
Conflicts of Interest Board has decided or settled from 1992 through last week? The
ethics provisions may not be the same as everywhere, but the problems
usually are.
The summaries are organized by topic, but there's no table of contents. So here goes:
The summaries are organized by topic, but there's no table of contents. So here goes:
A Ninth Circuit Decision on Legislative Immunity and Legislative Acts
Robert Wechsler
Yesterday, the Ninth Circuit, in its
decision in U.S. v Renzi, considered what constitutes a
"legislative act" with respect to the constitutional Speech or Debate
Clause, which provides legislative immunity to legislators by preventing the executive and judicial branches from investigating or hearing matters involving legislative acts.
A One-Way Prohibition on Misuse of Office for Clients
Robert Wechsler
On Monday, Anthony Man of the Sun-Sentinel wrote an excellent analysis of the lobbying elements of Florida Senate bill
846 (a copy of the bill is attached; see below), which was
recently passed by the senate unanimously.
A Paean to a Local Ethics Commission
Robert Wechsler
It's worth a look at Philadelphia columnist Dave
Davies' last column after twenty-five years on the job. It's
something rarely seen in the local government ethics world: a hymn of
praise to a local ethics commission, which he calls "a watchdog that
isn't afraid to bite."