December 11, 2009

Ethics Reform Task Force Report Released in Philadelphia

Yesterday, Philadelphia's Task Force on Ethics and Campaign Finance Reform released a 58-page report (plus ethics laws) requested by the city's mayor and council president in 2008.

The report recommends a large number of reforms, most of them stricter than what exists, some of them less strict and more realistic. Here are some of the most important recommendations:

    Make ethics rules applicable to all city officials and employees. Now some rules apply only to the executive branch.
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Conflicts of Interest December 10, 2009

Two Perspectives on Gift-Giving

I'm back from the Council on Governmental Ethics Laws (COGEL) conference, and I will be sharing some valuable information from the talks and panels I attended.

In a panel on gifts provisions in ethics codes, the panel consisted not only of the usual government ethics professionals, but also a lawyer who advises and defends lobbyists and those who do business with governments. One difference in their perspectives stood out.
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December 5, 2009

The Self-Serving Nature of Cook County Township Governments

It's been a year since the Council on Governmental Ethics Laws (COGEL), the association of state and local government ethics professionals, met in Cook County, IL. But the day before COGEL meets in Scottdale, AZ, it's time to take another look at one of America's most unethical counties, which includes Chicago.
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Conflicts of Interest December 4, 2009

The Home-Field Advantage Theory of Government Ethics

One way of describing government ethics is that it involves the use and abuse of the power that goes with government officials' positions. Not all such abuses are covered by ethics laws, of course. This blog post looks at an instance of abuse that is not covered. It involves a state legislature and, especially, one state representative, in a state where local ethics is handled at the state level.
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Ethics Commissions & Administration December 2, 2009

A Toothless Ethics Commission Seeks Information About the Effects of Its Recommendations


Ethics reform is difficult without a scandal. If your local government doesn't have an ethics commission, it's hard to form one. If there's an ethics commission without teeth, it's hard to even get dentures. And in Denver, according to an article in the Denver Post, it's hard to even get information about what happens after a toothless ethics commission recommends disclipinary action.
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Ethics Commissions & Administration December 1, 2009

Ways Not to Select the Members of an Ethics Commission

There are many right and wrong ways to select an ethics commission. The rightest ways take the selection process out of the hands of anyone who could possibly come before the EC, because that places a conflict of interest at the very center of a process intended to guide and enforce the responsible handling of conflicts. The rightest ways also prevent anyone who could possibly come before the EC, or their colleagues, from sitting on the EC.
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