City Ethics | Breaking the oxymoron: "City Ethics"

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…

Conflicts of Interest December 3, 2009

Bias Is Not a Conflict

Is it a conflict for a council member to be an officer of a neighborhood association? This issue arose recently in Tulsa, according to an article this week in the Tulsa World. A county commissioner petitioned to get a metropolitan planning commissioner removed from office because she voted on a mat…

December 2, 2009

Ethics Allegations Often Bring Out the Worst in Elected Officials

According to an article in Town Talk, an allegation against the mayor of Alexandria (LA) of ignoring a conflict of interest has led to some all too typical denial, squabbling, and inappropriate city attorney activity. The city council's legal committee passed a motion to conduct an investigation in…

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 informatio…

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…

November 28, 2009

County Commissioner Ethics Authority Over D.A. and Sheriff's Offices

According to an article in the Times-Herald, a Montgomery County (PA) judge ruled that the county commissioners do not have authority to prohibit employees of the district attorney or sheriff's offices from participating in political activities or running for office. This is an unusual rule. Genera…

Conflicts of Interest November 24, 2009

The Desire for Good Relations as a Conflicting Interest

An article in the Riverside (CA) Press-Enterprise this week raises two interesting government ethics issues. One involves conflicts based on a business-related desire to have good relations with the local government. The other involves conflicts based on campaign contributions to elected officials …

November 20, 2009

Join the Club?

When people support ethics programs that feature toothless enforcement, reel off the names of the countries that support toothless enforcement of the UN Convention against Corruption (according to an article in this week's Economist): Algeria Angola China Egypt Iran Pakistan Russia Venezuela Zimbab…

November 19, 2009

A Discrimination Complaint Against the Montgomery County (MD) Ethics Commission

I think it's safe to say that a local government ethics "first" has occurred in Montgomery County, Maryland. A transgendered council aide has filed a complaint against the county ethics commission on the grounds that the EC investigated her because of her gender identity, according to an article in…

Transparency & Disclosure November 19, 2009

It Should Come As No Surprise When Government Counsel Advises the Individual (Joseph Bruno) Rather Than the Office

Update: November 20, 2009 (see below) The latest news from the federal trial of former New York state senate majority leader Joseph Bruno's is sadly not surprising. According to an Associated Press article yesterday, former senate legal counsel told Bruno to hand-deliver his financial disclosure fo…

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