City Ethics | Breaking the oxymoron: "City Ethics"

October 2, 2013

Shaking Down or Institutional Corruption?

There is a fact of life that is very hard for many local elected officials to admit: most of the campaign contributions given to incumbents and serious challengers come from two sources: those seeking special benefits from the government and those who work for the government (and their unions). If both of these groups were not permitted to make campaign contributions, local elections would be contested with very little money, unless the government instituted a public campaign financing program.

Ethics Commissions & Administration October 1, 2013

EC Members and Ethics Advice

Is it too much to ask that an ethics commission member lead the way, set an example, with respect to the single most important aspect of a government ethics program: ethics advice?

Local Government Practice September 30, 2013

The Oversight Relationship

Here's an interesting local government ethics scenario from Ottawa that deals with the often neglected oversight relationship. According to an article this week in the Ottawa Citizen, six people died in a recent bus-train accident at the Woodroffe Avenue train crossing in Ottawa. This brought attention to the safety of the train crossing's design.

Conflicts of Interest September 28, 2013

The Other Side of Nepotism

There is usually another side of the coin, and that other side is often ignored in drafting a government ethics code. The other side of the nepotism coin came up recently in an ethics proceeding in Stamford, CT.

Ethics Commissions & Administration September 26, 2013

Independent Agencies Without Ethics Oversight Can Mean Disaster

"It was like dandelions. You just accept them. They were there, something you've seen all your life."

September 25, 2013

Isolated Scheme or Commonplace Corruption?

Yesterday, a felony complaint was issued against William Rapfogel, the CEO of the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty, a large nonprofit social service agency that received millions of dollars in grants and contracts from New York City, New York state, and the federal government.

Conflicts of Interest September 24, 2013

The Difference Between Conflicts and Gifts

There is a great deal of misunderstanding concerning the difference between a conflict of interest and a gift. It appears that most people consider them two completely different things. In fact, they represent two kinds of conflicts, pre-existing conflicts and conflicts that are created by an event. The confusion between the two characterizes a situation that led to an ethics complaint in Los Angeles.

Ethics Codes & Reform September 23, 2013

Government Ethics and the Limits of Mental Bandwidth

Sendhil Mullainathan's new book Scarcity: Why Having Too Little Means So Much (Times Books) has been getting a lot of attention lately. Although I haven't read it yet, I was intrigued by Cass Sunstein's review of the book in the September 26 issue of the New York Review of Books. Sunstein focuses on the idea of bandwidth as applied to the human mind.

Ethics Commissions & Administration September 20, 2013

More Bad Consequences of Gubernatorial Selection of EC Members in Georgia

I wrote about it in a June 2011 blog post, and then again in a June 2012 post, but it hasn't gone away. In fact, it became a big issue again this week when the Atlanta Journal-Constitution provided new evidence that things might have been far worse than was suspected.

Enforcement & Complaints September 19, 2013

The Extent of Legislative Immunity in an Open Records Proceeding

This blog has been closely following cases where the legislative immunity defense has been used in government ethics proceedings. This week, the same issue arose with respect to an open records proceeding in Wisconsin.

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