City Ethics | Breaking the oxymoron: "City Ethics"

Local Government Practice October 12, 2009

Holding Elected Officials to a Higher Standard

Should elected officials be held to a higher standard than ordinary people? And if so, who should decide? These questions are central to a dispute that has been simmering for two years in El Paso. According to an article in the El Paso Times yesterday, the local district attorney would not allow a …

Conflicts of Interest October 8, 2009

Taking the Big Ethical Step from Government Lawyer to Mayor

How can a lawyer responsibly deal with the following situation? A former city attorney, he has been general counsel to the city's sports authority, which oversees three major sports with three stadiums (and there's talk of a fourth, which the lawyer has publicly supported). The lawyer is also speci…

Enforcement & Complaints October 7, 2009

Collecting Ethics Commission Fines

What's an ethics commission to do? Even ethics commissions with teeth, that is, with the ability to fine officials, rarely have a way of actually collecting the fines. And if they do have a way of collecting fines, it can make things look unfair. Take South Carolina, whose ethics commission has jur…

October 6, 2009

Extortion Convictions in Dallas -- A Fascinating Story

Yesterday, according to an article in the Dallas Observer, Don Hill, a former Dallas council member, and four of his associates were found guilty of participating in an incredible extortion plot relating to affordable housing in South Dallas. The story, as produced by the prosecution with the help …

Enforcement & Complaints October 6, 2009

A Second Baltimore Legislative Immunity Decision: There Are Limits!

There are limits on the legislative immunity of local government officials, according to a decision yesterday by the Baltimore Circuit Court in the Dixon case (attached; see below), involving the mayor of Baltimore at the time she was president of the city council. The court rejected Dixon's motion…

Ethics Codes & Reform October 5, 2009

Ordinary vs. Technical Readings of Ethics Provisions -- A Case Study

Update: December 2, 2009 (see below) I have often complained about how local government officials and attorneys approach government ethics matters in an overly technical manner. Well, ethics commission attorneys can do this, too. In terms of the language in ethics codes, I think the rule should be,…

October 3, 2009

A Miscellany

When Is a Confidentiality Waiver Not a Confidentiality Waiver? It is common for ethics codes to allow respondents in ethics proceedings to waive confidentiality and make the proceeding public. This is what South Carolina governor Mark Sanford did, according to an article in The State back in August…

Resources & Learning October 2, 2009

How Views on Government Can Affect Views on Local Government Ethics

Reading Garry Wills' A Necessary Evil: A History of American Distrust of Government (1999) made me think about how anti- and pro-government feelings jive with views on government ethics. People who believe that government is a good way to deal with community-wide matters usually believe that the pu…

October 1, 2009

The Next Stage in the Baltimore Legislative Immunity Case

The next round of memoranda have been filed by the parties to the Dixon case, where the Baltimore mayor (though the case relates to her activities as council president) is raising a defense of legislative immunity in a criminal proceeding for perjury (relating to failure to disclose) to keep out ev…

Conflicts of Interest October 1, 2009

Procuring Trouble

When I heard about the ACORN sting, when two people posing as pimp and prostitute asked for help in getting a loan to open a brothel, I thought: what would happen if a local government official and a prostitute visited a local government attorney to ask for help in giving the prostitute a contract,…

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