Transparency & Disclosure

The situation where New York City's mayor misrepresented the reason for the resignation of one of his deputy mayors in order to protect his privacy regarding a domestic dispute raises some interesting issues about transparency, favoritism, and the extent to which the private should be made public.

I've written a little about ethics issues involving quasi-governmental entities and private entities doing government work (oversight, misuse, and personal financial disclosure). But there are many other issues that arise, and become problematic, when public work is done by private entities.

Update: May 14, 2011 (see below)

An ethics controversy in Hartford presents a perfect opportunity to show the difference between ethics and law, and the right way to approach financial disclosure requirements.

Are Americans turning First Amendment free speech into a fetish?

It's always nice to see clever, simple, effective forms of disclosure that convey the most important information in the most readable, quickly understandable way. Such a form of disclosure is suggested in a paper published a month ago by Justin Levitt, a professor at Loyola Law School, and summarized in an Election Law Blog post that ran yesterday.

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.

The Supreme Court has been nibbling away at campaign finance laws for years now, but the one thing all but one of the justices agree on is that requiring the disclosure of contributions does not infringe on first amendment speech rights.

Then why, as stated in the Washington Post yesterday, have organizations sponsoring issue ads failed to list the sources of their funding 85% of the time this year, when in 2004 they only failed to do this 29% of the time?

Here's a good followup to yesterday's blog post about a conflict of interest in Tucson.

Recusal is a two-part process. First, the official discloses his interest in a matter that has or will come before his board or agency. Then, the official does not participate in that matter.

Update: September 23, 2010 (see below)

Lack of transparency and voter indifference, especially relating to technical issues, are often considered minor issues not central to local government ethics. What happened the last few years in Bell, California (pop. 37,000; Los Angeles County) should make people think again about how central transparency and citizen participation are to preventing unethical conduct by local government officials.

Transparency