City Ethics | Breaking the oxymoron: "City Ethics"

Resources & Learning August 23, 2011

Habits of the Heart II: Civic Membership and the Common Good (Summer Reading)

Trust in government is a requirement for participation in government, what the authors of Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life refer to as "civic membership." This is strongest at the local level, where we are most likely to get involved in person rather than through phone calls, petitions, contributions, and voting.

August 22, 2011

Habits of the Heart I: Citizen Participation and Public Trust (Summer Reading)

Ethics Codes & Reform August 18, 2011

The Importance of Characterizing an Ethics Provision

How you present an ethics provision can make all the difference. Take a pay-to-play ordinance proposed in Fort Wayne, which would limit the amount of contributions and gifts that can be given to city officials by an individual or entity if it wants to have a no-bid contract with the city.

August 14, 2011

Ethics in Congress VI - Quotations and Ideas (Summer Reading)

My last post about Dennis F. Thompson's book Ethics in Congress: From Individual to Institutional Corruption is a miscellany of interesting quotes and valuable ideas.

August 13, 2011

Ethics in Congress V - Constituent Service (Summer Reading)

Constituent service is a basic legislative role that I have pretty much ignored in my blog (click here to read the principal exception). Government ethics focuses too much on votes and self-serving conduct, and too little on the ways in which council members and other government officials help their constituents in special or inappropriate ways. Constituent service is central to Dennis F.

August 12, 2011

Ethics in Congress IV - The Damaging Individual Corruption Paradigm (Summer Reading)

In his book Ethics in Congress: From Individual to Institutional Corruption, Dennis Thompson discusses two tendencies that lead to the overlooking or obscuring of institutional corruption’s significance. Those who bring or judge charges tend to individualize misconduct. This limits the wrongdoing to the individual who is charged, exonerating other members of the legislative body, even if they are involved in similar conduct, and ignoring the local government's ethics

Ethics Commissions & Administration August 11, 2011

Getting the Word Out to Lawyers

The American Bar Association Journal does a list of the best law-related blogs each year, and I thought I'd ask my readers to help get this list to work for a good cause: getting more lawyers to learn about local government ethics. City Ethics will get nothing out of being named to the list. To see last year's list (it's broken up into categories; City Ethics would fall under "niche"), click here.

Ethics Commissions & Administration August 11, 2011

Ethics in Congress III - Independent Advice and Enforcement (Summer Reading)

Looking at government ethics through the appearance standard, as Dennis Thompson did in his book Ethics in Congress: From Individual to Institutional Corruption, reveals the great importance of independence to ethics advice and enforcement. No one is in a worse position to see appearances of impropriety than someone who considers his motives to be good, and his goals to be of utmost importance.

Ethics Codes & Reform August 10, 2011

Ethics in Congress II - The Principles of Legislative Ethics and the Appearance Standard

Ethics Codes & Reform August 10, 2011

Ethics in Congress I - Institutional Corruption (Summer Reading)

My second volume of summer reading is a classic, Dennis F. Thompson's Ethics in Congress: From Individual to Institutional Corruption (1995). Despite the book's title, Thompson (a professor at Harvard) has a great deal to say about government ethics that is equally applicable to city and county legislators.

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