City Ethics | Breaking the oxymoron: "City Ethics"

January 4, 2013

Hatch Act Bill Amended to Let Local Government Employees Run for Office

The last Congress is known for doing very little, but a couple of weeks ago it actually passed a bill that will have a serious effect on local government ethics: the Hatch Act Modernization Act of 2012 According to a press release on the bill, it "removes the federal prohibition on most state and l…

Ethics Commissions & Administration January 3, 2013

Independent Non-Sitting Ethics Panels in Georgia

I'm a big supporter of making ethics commissions independent of those over whom they have jurisdiction. Milton, Georgia and, now, Forsyth County, Georgia have come up with an interesting approach to ethics commission independence that has one good point and several bad points. The recent amendments…

Ethics Codes & Reform January 2, 2013

Tennessee's Model Ethics Codes Fail to Create Local Ethics Programs

It's been six years since I last wrote about local government ethics in Tennessee. In a January 2007 comment to the forum on recusal, I focused on the fact that the University of Tennessee's Municipal Technical Advisory Service (MTAS) (which operates in cooperation with the Tennessee Municipal Leag…

Ethics Codes & Reform December 21, 2012

Understanding the Need for a Government Ethics Program

In a blog post two weeks ago, I welcomed an excellent, although sketchy, set of recommendations by a national law firm that amounted to a recommendation for the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) to set up a full-fledged ethics program. According to an article in the Washington …

Conflicts of Interest December 21, 2012

What We Can Learn from Robert Bork's Failure to Deal Responsibly with a Conflict Situation

The death of Robert Bork is a good time to learn from the biggest mistake in his life, one that may have cost him a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court. It involved his failure to deal responsibly with a superior's conflict of interest, and his own, since his superior forced his conflict situation onto …

Ethics Commissions & Administration December 18, 2012

A City Attorney Providing Ethics Advice in a Big City Is Indefensible

Update: December 19, 2012 (see below) I am always amazed at what contraptions people are willing to set up to justify the participation of a city attorney in the ethics program of a large city or county that has sufficient resources to hire an ethics commission staff member or independent ethics of…

Local Government Practice December 18, 2012

A Regional Solution to Regional Corruption

In February, I wrote seven blog posts applying some of the concepts and practices of nonviolence to the field of government ethics. This is effectively an eighth post. This time the inspiration is not a book, but the latest issue of the journal New Routes, entitled "Peace Without Borders: Regional …

Transparency & Disclosure December 17, 2012

Shell Companies and Disclosure

Transparency in government should not be limited only to officials. Disclosure rules should also apply to everyone seeking special benefits from government, such as contracts, permits, or grants. For one thing, without transparency on both sides of every transaction, it is impossible for the public…

Conflicts of Interest December 14, 2012

The Swords of Politics and the Shield of Government Ethics

No one wants a political government ethics program, and yet the people who most often worry out loud that it will be political want it to be political. This apparent paradox can be explained by looking at the various meanings of the word "political." Which of these meanings is most important to a g…

Conflicts of Interest December 13, 2012

Dealing with the Conflicts of Winnipeg's Mayor

Canadian mayors don't appear to be having a good time of it lately, ethicswise. Montreal's mayor resigned, Toronto's mayor was dismissed by a judge, and now it looks like the conflict situations of Winnipeg's mayor will be his downfall if he runs for a fourth term, according to a Canadian Broadcast…

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