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Ethics Commissions & Administration November 11, 2013

A New Sort of Regional EC in Utah

In early 2009, I started out a blog post, "Type 'ethics' into the search line at utah.gov, and all that comes up is Archery Ethics Course Online." That is no longer true. In fact, the state legislature not only has an ethics commission, it even passed a local ethics commission act.
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November 9, 2013

In China, Government Ethics Is the Most Important Topic

A front page article in today's New York Times involves allegations of self-censorship by Bloomberg News. But in addition, it tells a very important story about government ethics.
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Conflicts of Interest November 8, 2013

The Massachusetts EC Fixes a Poor Conflict Provision with an Exemption

Ethics commissions are often stuck with one or more ethics provisions that they are know are, in some ways, irresponsible. They can recommend amendments to the provisions, but the legislative body is free to ignore such recommendations.
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November 8, 2013

EC vs. Corp. Counsel in Honolulu

Many local ethics programs are caught up in an ongoing battle with the city or county attorney. Usually this battle goes on behind the scenes. But in Honolulu, due to an unusual grant of budget oversight to the corporation counsel, this battle has gone public.
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November 7, 2013

A Florida Legislative Committee Calls for the Suspension of the Palm Beach County EC

Toward the end of a video of the November 4 meeting of the Florida Joint Legislative Auditing Committee, the committee vice-chair says that the testimony he heard was very "troubling." I felt the same way about the meeting as a whole, but for completely different reasons. What occurred at this meeting is as troubling as anything I have seen in seven years of following local government ethics matters nationwide.
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November 6, 2013

An Audit Report on the Palm Beach County EC

In an April 2013 blog post, I wrote about the problems surrounding a Florida state senator's request for a state audit of Palm Beach County's EC. That report, drafted by the state legislature's Office of Program Policy Analysis and Government Accountability, has recently been published, and it includes the EC's response to the report (attached; see below).
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Local Government Practice November 5, 2013

Government Ethics Arguments Against Prayer at Local Government Meetings

Tomorrow morning, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments in the case of Town of Greece v. Galloway, regarding prayer at meetings of local legislative bodies. In addition to the important constitutional questions regarding separation of church and state, there are government ethics questions involved. This post will consider those ethics questions.
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Campaign Finance & Pay-to-Play November 4, 2013

Old and New Local Independent Spending in Elections

Update: February 7, 2014
It took the Jon Stewart Show three months to catch up with the City Ethics blog, but it was worth the wait. You have to watch the video they made about the Coralville, IA situation I discuss below. The defense of what occurred is truly incredible.
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Ethics Commissions & Administration November 1, 2013

The Wisdom of 38 Million Senior Citizens

One of the most powerful lobbyists in the United States has come out strongly in favor of independent, effective local government ethics programs. The lobbyist is AARP. Here is a quote from p.
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Local Government Practice October 30, 2013

The Philadelphia Ethics Board's Proposed Gift Regulation

Updated: November 20, 2013 (see below)

The gift regulation proposed by Philadelphia's ethics board last week (attached; see below) provides a great opportunity to consider many issues involving gift bans and exceptions.
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