City Related

According to an editorial in the New Jersey Star-Ledger, Gov.

According to an article in today's New York Times and in yesterday's Huffington Post, the investigator charged by Alaska's Legislative Committee, before Sarah Palin was even being considered as a vice presidential candidate, found in a report that, among other things, Gov.

The New York Times has an excellent article today on Alan Greenspan in relation to the current financial crisis. It provides food for thought about government regulation at any level.

Essentially, Greenspan believes that the cause of the crisis is Wall Street decisionmakers not acting honorably. However, the decision to regulate, like the decision to pass ethics codes, is to guide people to act more honorably and penalize those who do not.

Updated Oct. 10, 2008; see final three paragraphs

New York City is in a crisis. But its mayor and 2/3 of its City Council will have to leave office due to term limits imposed by referendum in the 1990s.

When does an interest become an interest? When an official starts thinking about entering into a contract? When she starts negotiating the contract? When she agrees on the details? When she actually signs the contract? Or is this not really the question to focus on?

According to an article in the Aspen (CO) Daily News, this issue arose recently on the Aspen City Council.

Sometimes a conflict of interest can help a community save money. An official with a relationship to a company might be able to negotiate a better deal for his town, as long as his company gets the business and the credit. But is this legitimate, and even if it is, how should it be handled?

Sometimes it's very difficult for a government official to deal with a conflict of interest involving a member of his or her immediate family. The common approach to ethics is to assume that an official will favor a family member, but sometimes an ethics law can take an official out of the uncomfortable position of having to reject a family member. And sometimes the situation with a family member can have elements of both.

A troubling KMOV television news report from Missouri (yes, another story from Missouri) has caught fire on right-leaning blogs. A self-styled Obama Truth Squad has been formed in Missouri, consisting of city and county prosecutors and sheriffs, who intend to set the record straight in response to advertisements that falsely characterize Sen. Obama and his policies. Examples include his religion and his tax cut proposal.

A year and a half ago, I started a series of blog entries on logical fallacies and their use in municipal politics. Logical fallacies are pseudo-arguments that consciously or unconsciously attempt to falsely persuade or manipulate people. They treat people as means rather than as ends, manipulating their thoughts, their feelings, their prejudices, their loyalties for the speaker's ends.

The most serious obstacle to the acceptance of conflict of interest programs in government is the clash between government ethics' use of a rules-based (deontological) ethical approach, and government officials' use of an ends-based (teleological) ethical approach.