City Ethics | Breaking the oxymoron: "City Ethics"

Ethics Codes & Reform February 10, 2014

Allegations Based on Unenforceably Vague Standards

Mike DeBonis's article in the Washington Post last week describes an operatic ethics matter, with several twists and complications, with dramatic cries of innocence mixed with scathing accusations of guilt. The article is certainly more exciting than this blog post, which focuses on issues raised b…

Conflicts of Interest February 8, 2014

Post-Employment Role Models

Government officials leaving office do not have to do just the minimum necessary to help gain the public's trust. They can do a lot more. And they can even make the rules they're following clear, so that they suggest an alternative to others and provide guidance. What is needed are role models. Jes…

Transparency & Disclosure February 7, 2014

Online Non-Required Disclosures in Chicago

They said it couldn't — or, at least, wouldn't — be done, but you can see it for yourself, in living Internet color: non-required disclosures made by Chicago officials and employees. These are not annual disclosures, but mostly disclosures of gift offers, accepted and rejected. There are dozens of…

Conflicts of Interest February 7, 2014

Human Rights Watch Report on the Effects of Probation Company Conflicts

Human Rights Watch has just published a harrowing report entitled "Profiting from Probation," which shows how the privatization of probation has led to conflicts of interest that have seriously harmed many individuals, and how probation companies have not been sufficiently supervised by the crimina…

February 6, 2014

Humor and Government Ethics

What role does humor play in a government ethics program? It looks like this is the principal issue in a Broome County, NY ethics case. According to an article put up yesterday afternoon on the Gannett Pressconnects website, the chair of the opposing party's county committee has written a letter to…

February 5, 2014

Winter Reading: Zephyr Teachout's "The Forgotten Law of Lobbying"

The draft of Fordham Law professor Zephyr Teachout's new essay, "The Forgotten Law of Lobbying," which will appear in Election Law Journal, looks at the history of how American courts have viewed lobbying. This history provides a valuable perspective on lobbying, making it more clear what it is abo…

February 4, 2014

First vs. Second Amendment Controversy in Kansas

A dispute in Kansas raises the question: which takes precedence, the First Amendment (free speech) or the Second Amendment? On July 1, 2013, a Kansas state law became effective that prohibited the use of state funds to pay for promotion or lobbying on gun control legislation or regulation at any g…

Ethics Commissions & Administration February 3, 2014

Gov. Christie Should Not Be Selecting the State Ethics Director (Now or Ever)

Updates: February 5 and April 16, 2014 (see below) Here is a must-read Star-Ledger op-ed piece by Paula Franzese, a professor at Seton Hall Law School and former chair of the New Jersey Ethics Commission (2006 to 2010). She provides a short history of the selection process for the executive directo…

February 3, 2014

Broward County IG Report on Countywide Ethics Program

This week, the Broward County (FL) inspector general filed a Review of the Existing Ethics Structure (attached; see below) of the countywide ethics program that he oversees, and which came into being via charter amendments overwhelmingly approved by the county's voters in late 2010. The 21-page rep…

Ethics Commissions & Administration January 31, 2014

A Government Attorney Ethics Advice Case Study from Florida

Here is a concrete example of the problem of allowing local government attorneys to provide ethics advice that protects local officials, a problem that Florida state senator Jeff Clemens and the Florida League of Cities want to harden into state law in SB 606 (see my recent blog post for a discussi…

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