Safra Working Papers | City Ethics

Resources & Learning May 15, 2014

Spring Reading: Alan Rosenthal on Lobbying I

Although twenty years old and about the state level, Alan Rosenthal's The Third House: Lobbyists and Lobbying in the States (CQ Press, 1993) provides valuable food for thought about lobbying at the local level. This first of two posts looks at such topics as the importance of relationships to lobbying and what makes local lobbying so different.

Resources & Learning May 15, 2014

Spring Reading: Alan Rosenthal on Lobbying II

This is the second post on Alan Rosenthal's The Third House: Lobbyists and Lobbying in the States (CQ Press, 1993). This post focuses on the importance of connections over influence, the role of money and constituents in local lobbying, and local lobbyists as relatively unprofessional, and what that means for lobbying regulation.

Professionalization

Resources & Learning April 10, 2014

Spring Reading: Dennis Moberg on Frames of Perception in Organizations

I thought that I had covered all the blind spots that wreak such havoc on local government ethics (see the section in my book Local Government Ethics Programs). But Dennis J.

Resources & Learning May 21, 2014

Spring Reading: The Day of Judgment

I just finished reading a masterpiece of a novel about Nuoro, a town in Sardinia: Salvatore Satta's The Day of Judgment, translated from the Italian by Patrick Creagh. It's a very wise, witty, and sad novel. Here are a few pearls of wisdom that shed light on local government ethics.

Resources & Learning April 2, 2014

Spring Reading: The Government Ethics Adviser As Civics Teacher

"'Public Service Must Begin at Home': The Lawyer as Civics Teacher in Everyday Practice" by Bruce A. Green and Russell G. Pearce (William & Mary Law Review, Vol. 50, p. 1207, 2009) provides an excellent basis for something that I consider extremely important to government ethics, but with which many government ethics practitioners disagree: going beyond the law in the provision of government ethics advice (sometimes known as "wise counsel").

September 16, 2008

Stadium Sweets

Is it a conflict of interest for local government officials to give themselves perks such as luxury boxes at sports stadiums, where they can not only entertain dignitaries in their government roles, which few would contest, but also their friends and contributors in their roles as person or candidate?

Conflicts of Interest September 29, 2010

Staff Members and the Revolving Door

Update: October 15, 2010 (see below)

Decision-makers are given too much credit. Most individuals who vote on government matters are non-professionals who are paid little or nothing, and who rarely focus on the matters before their body. They are, therefore, very dependent on staff members who are professionally trained and who are paid to focus on the matters before the body.

Transparency & Disclosure August 2, 2012

Stakeholders and Local Government Transparency

Corporate executives have obligations not only to stockholders, but also to other stakeholders, including customers, creditors, and the greater community. However, government officials, at least from the government ethics point of view, have overwhelming obligations only to members of their immediate community. Is this right?

Enforcement & Complaints June 8, 2011

Stall and Attack Offensives in Ethics Proceedings

It's important for ethics commissions to be prepared for the occasional official who, along with his or her attorney, will do anything to stop or at least delay its investigation, including attacks on the EC itself. A good example of how relentless an official can be is John J. O'Connor, now former head of the SUNY Research Foundation, whom I wrote about in a recent blog post.

February 19, 2011

Stamford Antagonists Reach a Settlement!

Good news from Stamford. According to an article in yesterday's Stamford Advocate and another article that just appeared online two hours ago, the board of ethics reached a settlement with the chair of the board of finance, in which they agreed to withdraw all ethics complaints and the federal suit filed by the finance chair.

Enforcement & Complaints October 6, 2010

Stamford Official's Attempt to Prevent Government Employees from Filing Ethics Complaints Is Nipped in the Bud

There's a new twist to the ethics mess in Stamford, which I described in a blog post last week.

Enforcement & Complaints June 10, 2008

Standards of Proof in Ethics Enforcement

The standard of proof for determining whether an ethical violation occurred has become an issue in Louisiana's ethics reform. After looking at several local government ethics codes, as well as the ethics codes of the states that have jurisdiction over local government officials, I don't think standards of proof have become enough of an issue in most jurisdictions.

Ethics Commissions & Administration June 25, 2008

Starving Ethics Commissions of Resources - The Situation in Oklahoma

Money is not only the root of much of the evil in government ethics, it is also the lifeblood of government ethics. Without money, ethics commissions, at least in cities and states, as opposed to towns, cannot do their job.

Do something the legislative body doesn't like and it has a good way to get back at you: cut off your funds or fail to fund your new obligations. At budget time, government ethics commissions, no matter how independent, often become just another political football.

Ethics Codes & Reform February 16, 2011

State Ethics Mandates for Local Governments

Unfunded Open Meetings Mandate in California
Local governments' protests against unfunded state mandates might, in this time of spending cuts, lead to the undermining of state ethics laws that apply to local governments. The first sign of this is in California, of course.

August 5, 2008

State Party Chair Tells Local Officials That Anything Goes

There are many ways for elected officials to undermine democracy, but trying to scare people away from registering to vote is among the most insidious.

Ethics Codes & Reform March 10, 2009

State-Mandated Ethics Reform and Political Culture

In many states without state enforcement of local government ethics, the compromise position pushed particularly by local government officials is to have the state mandate local ethics codes, but let local governments decide what's right for them. The motto of this position is, "One size does not fit all."

Conflicts of Interest February 28, 2013

Stock Ownership and a Relationship with a Competitor

The Los Angeles mayoral race has unearthed some conflict of interest allegations that are worth a look. There are three interesting issues. One, how much stock ownership in a public company is required to give rise to a conflict? Two, what about ownership of a competitor? And three, what if you don't know a public company whose stock you own is involved in a matter before you?

Conflicts of Interest August 25, 2008

Stock Ownership by Local Officials and Conflicts of Interest

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has come up with a new defense of a potential conflict of interest: "I'm investing in something I believe in."

What she was investing in, as "part of an entrepreneurial package," as she said on yesterday's Meet the Press, according to a partial transcript, was T. Boone Pickens' Clean Energy Fuels Corp., which despite Pickens' emphasis on wind power, also invests in using natural gas instead of gasoline for transportation, an important goal for Pelosi.

September 17, 2008

Stretching Conflicts to the Point of Absurdity

According to a lawsuit filed yesterday in Alaska by five Republican lawmakers to halt an investigation into Gov. Palin's dismissal of the state's public safety commissioner, elected politicians cannot investigate the actions of other elected politicians if they have a political bias, such as giving a campaign contribution to their party's presidential candidate.

Conflicts of Interest August 12, 2009

Stretching the Concept of Conflict Too Far

The concept of a conflict of interest is sometimes stretched far beyond what government ethics laws say, usually by those making accusations against government officials. But here is an example where a respected judge stretched the concept even further. It comes from a decision by Judge Friendly in Green v. Board of Elections of the City of New York, 380 F.2d 445 (2d Cir., 1967).