City Ethics | Breaking the oxymoron: "City Ethics"

May 19, 2014

Counter-Allegations Against Montana's Political Practices Commissioner

You're a government official who has had an ethics complaint filed against you. You want it go away. What do you do? According to an article in The Missoulian this weekend, there may be a new arrow in your quiver: file a court suit demanding dismissal of the complaint on the grounds of a conspirac…

Campaign Finance & Pay-to-Play May 16, 2014

Indirect Campaign Contributions Allow Fraudulent Speech

It's questionable whether a contractor, developer, grantee, or other individual or entity that seeks special benefits from a local government should be permitted to make sizeable campaign contributions to candidates for positions in the local government. But if they are not permitted to make such c…

Resources & Learning May 15, 2014

Spring Reading: Alan Rosenthal on Lobbying II

This is the second post on Alan Rosenthal's The Third House: Lobbyists and Lobbying in the States (CQ Press, 1993). This post focuses on the importance of connections over influence, the role of money and constituents in local lobbying, and local lobbyists as relatively unprofessional, and what tha…

May 15, 2014

Talk of Ethics Reform in Oakland and Sarasota County

An Oakland Ethics Reform Proposal According to an article this week in the Mercury News, an Oakland, CA council member has proposed to more than triple the city ethics commission's staff, expand its oversight powers to include campaign finance and lobbying (currently handled by the city clerk), hav…

Resources & Learning May 15, 2014

Spring Reading: Alan Rosenthal on Lobbying I

Although twenty years old and about the state level, Alan Rosenthal's The Third House: Lobbyists and Lobbying in the States (CQ Press, 1993) provides valuable food for thought about lobbying at the local level. This first of two posts looks at such topics as the importance of relationships to lobby…

Ethics Codes & Reform May 14, 2014

An Example of Why Towns Need Lobbying Codes

Small towns don't need lobbying registration, because no lobbying of any consequence occurs there. Small towns don't need lobbying registration, because no lobbying of any consequence occurs there. Say it often enough — as local government and lobbying associations do — and people believe it's true…

Enforcement & Complaints May 14, 2014

Ethics Self-Regulation Exposed by Ethics Complaint

Sometimes even a wrongheaded ethics complaint can do good, by showing how wrongheaded a town's government ethics program is. According to an editorial in The Day this week, the head of a local political party, Independence for Montville, filed an ethics complaint alleging that a former council memb…

May 13, 2014

A Proposed Procurement Review Task Force in Miami-Dade

The mayor of Miami-Dade County has announced the formation of a Procurement Review Task Force to, according to his May 6 memo (attached; see below), "improve and simplify our procurement process." The principal goals of the task force are: To ensure that all procurements continue to be conducted wi…

Ethics Codes & Reform May 9, 2014

Including Subcontract Lobbyists in a Lobbying Code

One of the areas where government ethics laws are weakest is the indirect relationship, such as when a gift is given not to an official, but to an official's spouse or child; an official's business relationship is not with a developer, but with the owner of the developer's parent; an official's aid…

Conflicts of Interest May 8, 2014

The Problem with Legislative Ethics Waivers

Many government ethics professionals don't like waivers. I think they're valuable. Basically, they are requests for an advisory opinion in which the official recognizes that certain conduct would constitute an ethics violation, but wants a determination that he can engage in the conduct due to spec…

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