July 24, 2007

The Ethics of Teacher Tenure

In common discussions of municipal ethics, one principal type of municipal employee is rarely mentioned: the teacher. Unless a teacher is, say, a school board member, he or she is rarely in a position to have a conflict of interest. Right? Click here to read the rest of this blog entry. An article on the front page of today's New York Times got me thinking about another possible conflict of interest a teacher might have. The article is about Steve Barr, who runs the Green Dot charter school organization in Los Angeles.
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Resources & Learning July 23, 2007

The Public's Trust in Government: A Book Review

Gaining and retaining the public's trust in government is the principal reason given for passing ethics codes. But there is little talk beyond this about the concept of trust. I just read a book called The Moral Foundations of Trust by Eric M. Uslaner (Cambridge University Press, 2002). This book's focus is on what the author calls 'generalized trust,' that is, the optimistic belief that people are basically trustworthy. However, the author also talks a lot about the other sort of trust, 'strategic trust,' which is a form of trust that requires reciprocity.
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Ethics Commissions & Administration July 19, 2007

Ethics Professionals Need to Defend Their Own

Louisiana legislators do not seem to like the state Board of Ethics. Earlier this year, two of them sued the Board of Ethics, based on a decision it made. Now the Legislature has passed a bill clearly intended to get rid of the Board's chief counsel, Gray Sexton. The first version of the bill, House Bill 532, required that Sexton no longer do outside work after August 2008. The bill was amended to require that Sexton disclose all of his private legal clients in the interim.
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July 14, 2007

Newark, NJ: The Ethical Damage of Hiding Corruption Behind a Racial Screen

According to a 33-count indictment filed yesterday by the United States Attorney for New Jersey, former Newark, NJ mayor Sharpe James appears to have been just another crooked urban mayor out to help himself and his friends to the sort of perks that aren't supposed to come with public service: trips, tickets, cruises, the usual. What is sad about this particular instance of corruption is that James is a folk hero in Newark, despite the fact that he continues to deny all charges and that he shows no concern about furth
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Conflicts of Interest July 9, 2007

The Ethics of Contingency-Fee Arrangements

Many municipal ethics codes have a provision similar to this one: Contingent Fees No official or employee may retain, or be retained by, anyone to solicit or secure a contract with the town upon an agreement or understanding that includes a commission, percentage, brokerage, or contingent fee, except with respect to attorneys hired to represent the town on a common contingency fee basis. I had never thought twice about the exception for attorneys who work on a contingency fee basis until I read Adam Liptak's column in today's New York Times.
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Ethics Codes & Reform July 9, 2007

Whistle-Blowing and the Ante of Unethical Conduct

According to a May 24, 2007 New York Times editorial, the Commerce Department inspector general, charged with protecting whistle-blowers, took vengeance on two subordinates who questioned his expense accounts. He reassigned his top deputy and his counsel to peripheral jobs, when they refused to sign off on expensive trips and office renovations. This happened at the federal level, but it is important to show how fragile whistle-blowing is.
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Local Government Practice July 4, 2007

How False Rumors Can Undermine a City's Ethical Environment

If you had no knowledge of government ethics, and you were asked what, on a day-to-day, moment-to-moment basis, was the most frequent form of unethical behavior in municipal government, you might say 'passing rumors along.' That's the meat and the potatoes of every organization's conversations, and it's only the most self-controlled of us who don't partake in producing, consuming, and passing along rumors, at least occasionally. We know rumor mongering is wrong, even as we do it. But rarely does it have devastating consequences (we assure ourselves, if we think about it at all).
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Enforcement & Complaints June 24, 2007

The Lawyer Discipline System and Its Effects on Municipal Ethics

Today's New York Times Week in Review section features an article on local prosecutors and how their ethical misconduct is dealt with by the lawyer discipline system, the profession's disciplinary system. The case of the Duke lacrosse prosecutor, Michael B. Nifong, is, of course, the occasion for this article. Mr. Nifong was disbarred for withholding evidence from the defense and misleading the court. Sanctions for prosecutorial misconduct are rare. But the question is, Why?
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