County Related

Over-reaction to an alleged ethics violation can be as bad as under-reaction.

The Dallas Morning News on Wednesday ran a fascinating article about Dallas County's district attorney. It caught my interest because he was accused of a conflict of interest, but accusing this district attorney of a conflict of interest is like accusing King Kong of being big.

The Dallas County DA is the county's chief law enforcement officer. He also represents the Commissioners' Court (the county council) in civil matters.

When I wrote about the disclosure controversy in Suffolk County back in July, I didn't realize that another interesting ethics issue was going on there. In late June, the county legislature had instituted an investigation of the county ethics commission. One reason for this investigation appears to be the commission's decision to allow the county executive to file only a state disclosure form, even though, it turned out, this decision was legally correct.

In Milwaukee County, according to an article in Sunday's Journal-Sentinel, a county supervisor is seeking to add to the county ethics code a confidential information provision that would not limit the prohibition to what is common in ethics codes: information divulged for someone's benefit.

What is most remarkable about the proposed code of conduct for Santa Fe County (NM) is the fact that it was drafted by the county attorney. It reads as if it were put together by a citizens group in a community that has lost faith in its government officials.

What can a citizen do when a local government official falsely impugns her reputation and retaliates against her due to her opposition to a matter the official supports? The City Ethics Model Code has a provision that deals with an official falsely impugning a citizen's reputation, but very few ethics codes contain such a provision. And even our model code has nothing that deals with retaliation.

I've been writing a lot about the controversies surrounding a new Broward County (FL) ethics code, but there's also been controversy in the Broward County School District that is likely to lead to an ethics code of its own (according to a Miami Herald editorial on Saturday, a former school board member pleaded guilty to federal bribery charges this year, and another member revealed that her husband works for a firm that frequently lobbies the school board).

I don't normally deal with purely campaign finance issues, but this gambit is too good (or too bad) to pass by. The perpetrator of the gambit is our old friend Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, AZ.

You see, he's not running for sheriff again until 2012, but he doesn't like one of the guys who's running for county attorney in 2010, and he's got lots of money left over from the last election.

Whistleblower provisions are extremely important to government ethics, but poorly worded ethics provisions can undermine even the best whistleblower provisions, especially in unscrupulous hands. One such ethics provision is the confidential information provision.

A nurse at a Winker County, TX hospital was charged with felony misuse of confidential information for reporting improper medical treatment by a doctor, according to an article in today's New York Times.

What responsibility does a candidate have to check on those who make contributions to his or her campaign? Is there a greater responsibility when the candidate is running for a law enforcement position, from sheriff to D.A. to judge?