Safra Working Papers

Transparency & Disclosure November 13, 2012

The Value of Applicant Disclosure

A situation that arose recently in Atlanta shows how important it is to require applicant disclosure of relationships with local government officials, and to hold applicants accountable. According to an article in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Atlanta's ethics office dismissed allegations that a council member had sponsored and voted on a no-bid contract when he had some sort of employment relationship with the contractor.
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Conflicts of Interest April 11, 2009

The Value of Jurisdiction Over Contractors in Projects Paid For with Local Government Funds

An important issue in local government ethics is how far jurisdiction should go. Recently, I did a blog entry on jurisdiction over those doing government-approved work. An article in today's New York Times raises another important jurisdictional question:  should a local government have ethics jurisdiction over those contracted to do work supported by city funds, but not paid directly by the city?
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Local Government Practice October 18, 2010

The Vicious Circle of Fear and Indifference

Citizen indifference and lack of participation is the most damaging result of a lack of trust in government officials. One reason is that a vicious circle is created. When government officials are untrustworthy, and especially when they use intimidation to create the sort of fear that severely cuts into citizen participation, there are fewer people to watch over them on behalf of the public. This makes government officials feel more fearless and act more self-serving and more openly intimidating. And so on.
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Ethics Codes & Reform December 16, 2008

The Virtuous Circle of Ethics Laws and Legislative Immunity -- And the Legislators Who Stand Outside of It

Back in June, in the middle of a long blog entry on legislative immunity, I referred to the virtuous circle that includes both ethics laws and the Speech or Debate Clause, which provides legislators immunity from interference from the executive and judicial branches. I would like to focus on this virtuous circle, and explain it further, because I think it might be the most important argument in support of continued independent ethics jurisdiction over legislators at every level of government.
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Enforcement & Complaints December 22, 2009

The Willful Standard in Nevada's Ethics Enforcement


Standard of proof is a big issue in ethics enforcement, as it is in any enforcement. A year and a half ago, I wrote a blog post on the mishmash of standards of proof in local ethics codes and in the codes of states that have jurisdiction over local government ethics. In many codes there is no stated standard or a worthlessly ambiguous standard. In others, the standard is clear, but a serious obstacle to enforcement.
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Ethics Commissions & Administration August 18, 2009

The Witch Hunt Argument Against Ethics Commissions with Teeth

Update - see below (9/2/09)
One of the biggest limitations on local government ethics codes can be state ethics laws. In Connecticut, for example, state laws seriously limit how much local ethics commissions can fine violators of an ethics code. In fact, the language is so vague, many lawyers insist that local ethics commissions can't fine at all. State legislators, most of whom are former local government legislators, don't want to let local ethics commissions get out of hand.
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Ethics Commissions & Administration February 26, 2009

The Worthlessness of Toothless Ethics Commissions

There's a lot of talk among government ethics practitioners about how important it is for ethics commissions to have teeth, that is, the ability to at least reprimand and fine government officials for ethics violations. Requiring council approval of ethics recommendations brings elected officials into the ethics process and politicizes it. And politicizing an ethics program undermines its goal of gaining the public's trust in elected officials to govern for the public, not for themselves and their families, friends, and business and political associates.
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Conflicts of Interest April 25, 2012

Theories of a Legislator's Role That Lie Beneath Definitions of Corruption

University of Maryland Law School professor Deborah Hellman recently put the draft of her law review article, "Defining Corruption and Constitutionalizing Democracy" (forth. Mich. L. Rev (Vol. 111)), on SSRN. The core argument of her paper is that defining legislative corruption requires a theory of the legislator's role in a democracy. Hellman sets out three such theories, and I add a fourth.
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Resources & Learning February 27, 2008

There's a Lot We Can Learn from Adolf Eichmann -- Really

Adolf Eichmann is the iconic extreme of the government bureaucrat. Not that any of us will hopefully ever be given orders like the ones he was given, but his simply following orders makes anyone question his or her own simply following orders. There’s a lot more about government ethics that can be learned from Adolf Eichmann, I found from reading Hannah Arendt’s book Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil (1963).
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Conflicts of Interest July 28, 2011

Threats to Officials' Focus on the Public Interest

It is sometimes hard to see what campaign finance has to do with government ethics, that is, conflicts of interest. Campaign finance involves candidates getting elected, while conflicts of interest have to do with decisions made by elected officials. What they have in common is that both areas are intended to help officials act for the public interest rather than their own.
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Ethics Commissions & Administration April 20, 2011

Three Preventative Approaches to the Legislative Immunity Defense

I've written many blog posts about various cases where the legislative immunity defense has been made, but I haven't pulled together in one post the three alternative, preventative approaches local governments can take to deal with the issue of legislative immunity before anyone raises it as a defense. It is far better, and far less expensive, to prevent local legislators from raising the defense of legislative immunity than it is to litigate this complex issue.
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