City Related

We have something more than a credit crisis. We have a governance crisis. According to the new Gallup Governance poll, only 26% of Americans are satisfied with the way this nation is being governed. In 2002, the number was 59%. As recently as early 2007, the number was 42%. This is a bigger drop than the stockmarket. Perhaps our nation belongs in moral bankruptcy court. The last time 74% of Americans were dissatisfied with their government was after Watergate.

Here is an editorial from today's Salt Lake City Tribune about the state of the state's ethics laws. I've read editorials like this before, but this one sounds unusually hopeless. After the editorial, I will throw out an idea about how to go about getting politicians to make the right sort of ethics pledges.

Ethics reform: If at first you don't succeed ...

Today's big story comes to us from Cook County, Illinois, and although it's about whether a government lawyer has a conflict of interest, the matter falls into the area of government ethics in which Chicago and Cook County have led the way for decades: patronage.

In Arcata, California, according to an article in yesterday's Times-Standard, there is a policy to review the city's conflict of interest code every two years. This is extremely rare. Ethics codes are usually reviewed only when there is a scandal or when a mayor wants to add a feather to his or her hat.

Is it a conflict of interest for local government officials to give themselves perks such as luxury boxes at sports stadiums, where they can not only entertain dignitaries in their government roles, which few would contest, but also their friends and contributors in their roles as person or candidate?

When U.S. presidents, or even mayors, are brought down by ethics violations, it takes some pretty hefty skullduggery and covering up to do it. But according to a Christian Science Monitor article this week, with the great title "As a TV chef, Thai P.M. cooked his own goose," Thailand's Constitutional Court ordered the prime minister to quit because he moonlighted as a television chef, with all the covering up coming in the form of sauces.

It is rare for the news media to look at government ethics any more deeply than a particular scandal, usually one involving law-breaking, money, sex, or a public argument between parties or within a party. The vice-presidential nomination of Sarah Palin has led to the most in-depth look at government ethics for a long time.

Local governments may only be accountable to their citizens, but they also have fiduciary duties to those who invest in their bonds.

It's great to read newspaper commentary that shows an understanding of how an unethical organization acts, in this case, the effects of its employment of denial. Scott Lewis, voiceofsandiego.org's Executive Editor and political commentator, did this in a column this week.

It was exciting to see someone who made her reputation as a government ethics advocate named to the Republican ticket. But it was very troubling to read how she handled a recent revolving door matter.

Also, what she did and said made me realize there is a hole in the City Ethics Model Code Project's provisions on the revolving door. The provision deals with what officials do after their public service, but not what public servants might have done before they came on board.