City Related

What stronger personal interest is there than family relationships? And yet so many people don't get the problems nepotism in government poses, at least until it takes a chunk out of their wallets.

Update below:

There's a national local government annual ethics report that is worthwhile taking a look at. It comes from the International City/County Management Association (ICMA), the professional organization of city, county, and town managers. To my knowledge, no other local government executive or legislative professional organization allows ethics complaints to be brought against its members and enforces its code.

Because local governments' annual ethics reports serve so many purposes -- publicizing the ethics program's existence, educating officials and the public about what an ethics program includes, and making an example of those who do not file disclosure forms or are found to have participated in unethical conduct -- they should be made as easily, widely, and inexpensively available as possible.

And that means putting them up on the local government's website.

Annual reports are, among other things, one of the most important, and overlooked, enforcement mechanisms.

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.

Last week, the Kansas City, MO city council ordered an investigation into possibly unethical conduct by the city's mayor, according to an article in the Kansas City Star. The principal conduct is the use of the mayor's former communications director to work on a political campaign (not the mayor's re-election campaign).

I just obtained the Rhode Island Ethics Commission's memorandum in support of its jurisdiction over legislators, which was contested by the former state senate president William V. Irons, as discussed in an earlier blog entry. The argument of the EC's brief is not typical, because the ethics commission and code were created pursuant to a 1986 constitutional amendment.

Sports and other event tickets are a constant issue in local government ethics. Yes, mayors are often expected to attend major events, but who else is? Why should city ownership of a facility matter in handing out tickets? The ownership is not the officials' or employees', but the citizens'.

I was in Chicago for the Council on Governmental Ethics Laws annual conference for a week, which is why I haven't been blogging lately. I was there when Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich was arrested, so the arrest and the tales of selling a Senate seat and blackmailing the Chicago Tribune are old news now. But there are a couple of interesting facts about the situation which have been largely ignored.