Safra Working Papers

Transparency & Disclosure December 10, 2012

The FOI Alternative to Conflict Disclosure

In a quality government ethics program, every official and employee involved in a matter publicly discloses any possible conflict and withdraws from the matter. But what if a city or county does not have a quality government ethics program? How is the public to know whether conflicts are being handled responsibly?
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Conflicts of Interest November 25, 2008

The Gift

Gift disclosure and limitations are an important part of government ethics. But rarely do we think of what gifts mean. Usually this goes little further than politicians saying, "I can't be bought."
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Conflicts of Interest December 1, 2008

The Gifts Dilemma

There are two principal ways of dealing with gifts to government officials and employees, and both of them are unsatisfactory, although certainly better than ignoring them completely. One approach is prohibition, the other disclosure.
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March 5, 2014

The Good and Bad of Palm Beach County's EC Selection Process

The independent selection of EC members is a great thing for making a government ethics program appear independent of those under its jurisdiction and for ensuring that an ethics commission remains fully stocked with members. But how this selection process is actually accomplished matters, too.
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Local Government Practice March 6, 2009

The Government Attorney and Zealousness

Lawyers are supposed to zealously represent their clients. After all, Canon 7 of the ABA Code of Professional Responsibility says, "A lawyer should represent a client zealously within the bounds of the law." This requirement applies as much to government lawyers as it does to private lawyers, right?
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Local Government Practice April 16, 2011

The Government Attorney-Client Privilege in a Local Government Investigatory Context

Is the attorney-client privilege, in the context of an inspector general's (or, for that a matter, an ethics commission's) investigation of misconduct in city government, "sacred," as Chicago's corporation counsel insists? Is it even appropriate?

This is a long post that will be fascinating to many, will raise hackles in some, but will be of less interest to others. If you want to cut to the chase, read the summary paragraph at the end and move on.
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Local Government Practice April 7, 2008

The Hatch Act's Restrictions on Running for Local Government Office

There is one local government conflict of interest that is often ignored because it was created at the federal level by a federal statute. The statute is known as the Hatch Act of 1939 (Title 5, Subchapter III), originally known as An Act to Prevent Pernicious Political Activities (they don’t make statute names like they used to). The Hatch Act limits the political activities of local government employees who are principally employed by programs funded in whole or in part by the U.S.
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Ethics Codes & Reform December 23, 2008

The Holiday Spirit and the Spirit of Ethics Laws

It's pop quiz time. Read the following ethics code provision and hypothetical, and answer the question that follows them.

No public servant shall solicit or accept, directly or indirectly, any thing of economic value as a gift or gratuity from any person or from any officer, director, agent, or employee of such person, if such public servant knows or reasonably should know that such person has or is seeking to obtain contractual or other business or financial relationships with the public servant's agency
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Conflicts of Interest December 4, 2009

The Home-Field Advantage Theory of Government Ethics

One way of describing government ethics is that it involves the use and abuse of the power that goes with government officials' positions. Not all such abuses are covered by ethics laws, of course. This blog post looks at an instance of abuse that is not covered. It involves a state legislature and, especially, one state representative, in a state where local ethics is handled at the state level.
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Ethics Codes & Reform July 31, 2006

The Importance of Being Readable

One of the most serious problems with municipal ethics codes is their unreadability. Few of those who write them seem to consider the capabilities of the code's audience: municipal officials and employees without a legal education. In 1998, the Securities and Exchange Commission insisted that documents intended to disclose information to the public should be written in plain English, and to help with the process, it put together a Plain English Handbook: How to Create Clear SEC Disclosure Documents (www.sec.gov/pdf/handbook.pdf).
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Ethics Commissions & Administration May 7, 2009

The Importance of Publicizing Ethics Programs

If the governmental ethics community had a publicity program, the headline of a front-page article in Tuesday's Kansas City Star would be a call to arms:

Legislators agree: Ethics laws are puppies, not pit bulls


The gist of the article is that, in Missouri and Kansas, the state ethics commissions are underfunded, the state ethics laws are too weak, and enforcement is insufficient to act as a deterrent.
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Ethics Commissions & Administration September 8, 2009

The Independence of New Orleans' Ethics Program

The New Orleans Ethics Review Board, formed in 2006, certainly wins an A for independence. According to the city ethics code, six of its seven members are chosen by the mayor (with council approval) from nominees submitted by the heads of five local private universities (the seventh is the mayor's to select). Unfortunately, the result is that the majority of board members work at the universities.
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