We are told in school that one of the reasons the American Revolution happened is that colonists faced taxation without representation. This is just about as bad as it gets. But there is also such a thing as representation without taxation. How bad is that? What effect does it have on government an…

When I saw the headline from the Anchorage Daily News, "Palin Calls Blogger's Ethics Complaint Bogus," and saw that it had to do with clothing the governor wore, I thought I might write a piece about using ethics complaints for the purpose of political harassment. But when I read the article, I rea…

Ethics codes do not generally have rules about the involvement of spouses of government officials in citizen groups. But this can create serious appearance problems, as it has in St. Charles, Illinois, an hour west of Chicago, according to an article in yesterday's Chicago Tribune. The wife of a St…

Last October, I wrote a blog entry about why parties should fight elections, not referee them. An indictment this month in Kentucky emphasizes the need for the election process to be taken out of the hands of those contending for the results of that process. According to the indictment, the Clay Co…

The controversy surrounding the New York State pension fund returned to the front page of the New York Times today. The players are former state comptroller Alan Hevesi, his political adviser Hank Morris, and pension fund investment officer David Loglisci. The occasion is the indictment by the stat…