Safra Working Papers

Conflicts of Interest November 23, 2008

Don't Underestimate the Effects of Conflicts of Interest II - Oversight by Friends and Those You Trust

Last month, I wrote about the conflict of interest that led credit agencies to ignore the risk inherent in mortgage-backed securities. A front-page article in today's New York Times shows how a different sort of conflict of interest at Citigroup allowed the risks involved in these securities to be ignored. No crimes, no politics, just plain old conflict of interest. With an extremely big price tag for our society.
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Conflicts of Interest March 15, 2007

Double-Dipping: Two Ways It Works ... and Hurts the Public

Double-dipping occurs when someone holds two government jobs, usually at two different levels of government. This is not legal in many states, and for a good reason. It sets up many possible conflicts of interest, not the least of which is that when you're doing one job, you're not doing the other. It sometimes means actually dealing with yourself, wearing both your hats at once. It leads to a lot of pork-barrel spending, as local officials use their state power and local connections to direct state grant money.
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August 18, 2010

Dragging Down the Level of Government Ethics Reform

A new way to obtain ethics reform is making some headway in New York State. A number of former bigwigs, including former governor Mario Cuomo, and former NYC mayors Ed Koch and Rudy Giuliani, have created an organization called New York Uprising and a three-part pledge, one of which calls for a new state ethics commission and financial disclosure requirements (the other two involve redistricting and budget-making).
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November 11, 2010

Drastic Proposals to Disassemble the Dream Machine


Vernon, CA, the subject of several blog posts here (click here for the latest), has been the object of criminal investigations, but now local officials are starting to get creative in response to the most creatively imagined city in the U.S.

Solution 1: Constitutional Amendment
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April 10, 2008

Eastern Oregon Takes on Government Transparency

Financial disclosure scares citizens away from sitting on local boards and commissions. This is the “fact” stated every time any level of financial disclosure is discussed. In my state, Connecticut, all the financial disclosure that was required in a recent bill was the name of one’s employer, and yet the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities opposed it with the same old canard. “Canard” is French for “duck” or, more appropriately in this case, “Duck!” which is effectively what municipal officials are saying when they oppose financial disclosure.
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Ethics Commissions & Administration February 28, 2014

EC Jurisdiction Over Those Who Govern

I'm currently reading a classic political science book about urban politics, Who Governs? by Robert Dahl. Who governs? is a question that is not asked often enough in local government ethics. It is not enough for an ethics program to have jurisdiction over officials and employees. It needs to have jurisdiction over those who actually govern the community, no matter what their position.
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Ethics Commissions & Administration February 12, 2013

EC Member Withdrawal in a Case Involving an Appointing Authority

Note: When I originally wrote this blog post, I erroneously assumed that the ethics commission member whose conflict situation I discuss was the only one selected by the assembly speaker. I since learned that three of the members were selected by the assembly speaker. I would argue, therefore, that these three members are in the same situation (except for the personal opinion expressed about someone who would presumably be involved in the matter). With a fourteen-member commission, the withdrawal of three members from a matter would not hamper consideration of it.
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Ethics Commissions & Administration February 2, 2010

EC Members and the Law-Ethics Distinction

Should ethics commission members follow ethics laws to the letter, and no further, or should they provide leadership and a role model by going beyond legalism and instead acting ethically? State EC members in New York and Georgia are telling the world by their actions and their words that only the letter of the law matters in government ethics.
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